On 15/09/11 17:22, Ian Park wrote:
> On 14/09/11 17:09, Ian Grody wrote:
>> On Wednesday 14 September 2011 15:09:57 Ian Park wrote:
>>> I've been running firewall distributions for a good few years now on an
>>> old Compaq low profile box (Pentium III, 500 MHz) which I bought from
>>> Jamie's. I started with Smoothwall v2.0, and added extra RAM when I
>>> upgraded to Smoothwall v3.0; it now has 512MB RAM and a 6.3GB HDD.
>>>
>>> About a year ago, an article in Linux Format caught my eye, and I
>>> decided to give IPCop a go - we have a fair few visitors over the year,
>>> and it's handy to be able to give them internet access via a wireless
>>> access point without having to let them loose to roam on my home
>>> network. IPCop's blue interface looked like the answer, but I've had no
>>> end of grief trying to get the WLANAP add-on for IPCop to work. I've
>>> tried a total of five different wireless LAN cards; IPCop v1.9.20
>>> recognises only one of them (it uses the RaLink 2561 chipset), and even
>>> with that one, when I installed the appropriate version of the add-on it
>>> threw a wobbly at the end of the installation.
>>>
>>> To add to the fun, the WLANAP add-on doesn't work any more since the
>>> upgrade from 1.9.19 to 1.9.20 - the upgrade included a new kernel
>>> version, 2.6.32-4, and the latest version of wlanap-ipcop (3.0.0-c6)
>>> matches kernel version 2.6.32-3...
>>>
>>> Can anyone suggest an alternative route to where I want to be (i.e. the
>>> equivalent of IPCop with red, green and blue interfaces), please? I
>>> suppose in the end I could just stick a wired network card in the IPCop
>>> box and hook up to an external wireless access point, but that would
>>> mean using another power socket, and I already use about 18 in this room...
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for any help
>>>
>>> Ian
>>
>>
>> You could always chuck out that horrid Ralink chip, chuck in an Atheros.
>> Atheros and intel along w/ Zydas tend to have some of the best support for
>> using them as wifi softAP's.
>>
>> I'd suggest using an Atheros (5000 series chips are most supported impo) wifi,
>> then use pfSense as your firewall/router. 2.0 is still in RC state, but gets
>> regular updates and can do everything you are wanting and a tonne more. I have
>> this running on a P3 533MHz box w/ 512MB and it does the job for what it's
>> intended. Which handles Wifi (via atheros wifi), another wifi through AP
>> hardwired, two LANs, a few VLANs & VPN.
>>
>> Zeroshell was gearing towards support for wifi config via web-gui, but not sure
>> how they progressed as I stopped using this for pfSense 2 years ago. It looked
>> promising though (and this one is linux based). It did work however if you
>> enabled it under the hood.
>>
>> You could always use RouterOS for x86 - You would need to check what wifi cards
>> this supports, atheros I know are one lot. This OS is intended for RouterBoard
>> family of routers - But Mikrotik have nicely made a download available to
>> install on PC. It is a trial, however, but getting a license to use it isn't
>> too expensive.
>>
>> DistroWatch have a list of firewalls for PC etc to use. However, I do not how
>> new or updated this list is..
>>
>> http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Firewall&origin=All&basedon=All¬basedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=Active
>>
>>
>> Good luck
>>
>> --
>> Please post to: Hampshire@???
>> Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
>> LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk
>> --------------------------------------------------------------
>>
> Thanks to everyone for their input.
>
> First, on the logistics: She Who Must Be Obeyed was out this morning, so
> I was able to set up a spare box with a couple of wired NICs and
> configure that to keep up our access to the network and the
> intercommunication between the various PCs on our home LAN, thereby
> freeing the little Compaq for me to mess about with.
>
> First hurdle was that the CD drive in the Compaq seems to have died -
> it's one of the type they put in laptops. Fortunately I was able to hook
> up a standard DVD-ROM drive and install IPFire 2.9, which went uneventfully.
>
> Next hurdle was that the Compaq wouldn't recognise the WLAN card (a
> TP-Link TL-WN551G, with an Atheros AR5212 chipset) which I wanted to
> use, although it was recognised in the other box (before you suggest
> that I stick to the "other box", it's a lot bigger than the Compaq, and
> won't fit in the space I've got for the firewall). I *was* able to set
> up the Blue interface on the Compaq with a Tenda W54P (RaLink RT2561),
> so I think I'll try moving on with that. Another of the reasons I'd
> prefer to stick with the Compaq is that it accepts standard height cards
> (only two, but that's enough), whereas a lot (if not all) of SFF cases
> nowadays require low profile cards (e.g. the Deskpro 7100 SFF which I
> use as my Win XP machine)...
>
> Cheers
>
> Ian
OK, I've now got the little Compaq box set up with IPFire, using the one
and only wireless card which is acknowledged by setup: the Tenda W54P
with the Ralink RT2561 chipset. Setting up the blue interface via the
web management interface of IPFire seemed to work OK, *but* when I tried
using it with my netbook (having switched off the wireless access point
I normally use), on the first try Network Manager went round in a loop,
presumably trying to find an IP address. After a bit of messing around
setting up the proxy for the blue interface, I managed to get a working
internet connection - modified rapture ;)
I now have four more-or-less spare wireless network cards...
Ian
--
Ian Park
17 Pyle Hill
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 7JJ
Tel: +44 (0)1635 821420
email: i.d.c.park@???
--
--
Please post to: Hampshire@???
Web Interface:
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
LUG URL:
http://www.hantslug.org.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------
