which distro for a router/gateway box?

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mycomputersucks

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Oct 31, 2001
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I have an old p3 550, 256mb pc100, 20 gig hdd and i want to convert it to a NAT gateway/router/possible proxy and print server. I currently have a cheap linksys wifi router and i was talking to a coworker about internet latency/connectivity issues and he recommended building a linux box to manage my network traffic. I have some experience w/ setting up an IDS on fedora but i have no experience w/ any other linux distros.

I would like the option of a GUI but it wouldn't have to run all the time. I was looking at Damn small linux and the RAM drive option was interesting but i don't think it would be necessary but i do like the idea of a small OS footprint. I also have no idea what additional software would be required.

also, i have a usb wifi adapter, can that be configured to run as an access point or would i need to purchase some proprietary hardware?

I currently have 3 ethernet devices and up to 4 wifi devices that use my network.

Thanks!
 
mycomputersucks said:
also, i have a usb wifi adapter, can that be configured to run as an access point or would i need to purchase some proprietary hardware?
Thanks!
Click to expand...

You almost certainly won't be able to use that usb wifi adapter in master mode ("AP"), sorry. You'll need to get a wifi pci card with a prism54 or atheros chipset to work with master mode. Broadcom's are almost supported by the b43 driver, but they still have issues.

Oh.. and freebsd rocks as a router. :)
 
I use pfSense on mine, it works fantastic. I have a P3 866 with 256 MB RAM, two 10/100 NICS and a Intel mini-PCI wireless card out of a laptop in a mini-PCI<->PCI adapter card for an access point. USB wifi probably would work with a Linux router distro, but not yet with *BSD.
 
Pfsense! Running the latest stable with dual wan and failover in a production environment.
 
m0n0wall, pfsense, they all work. I chose to roll my own with FreeBSD, since it's not hard at all to do.
 
Shaggy3zx said:
Is anyone using Endian Community?
Click to expand...

I've used it, and liked it quite a bit. Unlike pfSense it has excellent OpenVPN support in the webgui, whereas pfSense lacks the ability to generate certificates from the webGUI.
pfSense is far more customizeable, gives you complete control over firewall rules from web interface, and much more lightweight. It is also, afaik, the only free distro that lets you set up vlan interfaces from webgui.
My vote goes to pfSense.
 
I've been using IPCop w/ the Copfilter add on for about 5 years now (at least IPCop, copfilter isn't that old yet). I've had a couple of occasions where I had 1+ year up times.

The only other one I would recommend is Endian. It is basically IPCop with copfilter added in and the interface updated.
 
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