New (extreme) Router...what to do?

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mrand01

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 22, 2002
Messages
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Well...I hate my Linksys WRT54GS (its a v8, so don't suggest DD-WRT). I'm going to indulge, so I don't want another linksys. My 2 choices as I see it are this:

1. Just buy a Cisco PIX 520 on ebay and call it a day...I know how to configure them, and frankly, its a great firewall/router
2. I have a P4 2.4 w/ 1gb of DDR RAM...turn it into a router w/ IPCOP. All I'd need is a few NICs and a gigabit switch (I'd need the switch w/ the cisco also)

I want to have seperate LANs for regular and dmz, and another for WiFi (I guess just an access point?) I don't care about the wifi too much...only visitors and my iPod touch will use it, so no big deal.

What should I do...which option? And what parts should I get? I know Intel gigabit NICs are good...but I know nothing about switches...does it matter? I know i could do 2 switches (one for dmz one for regular), or I could do a single switch w/ VLANs...ideas? I don't want to go nuts...maybe $500 total?
 
mrand01 said:
What should I do...which option? And what parts should I get?
Click to expand...

Well, quite frankly, unless you have a budget of several thousand dollars...actually quite a bit more....you won't get the performance and features on an "off the shelf" product..that you can get by taking that P4 and sticking some *nix distro on it. So why not go ahead and take that option? It will run a kajillion circles around some old PIX firewall without breaking a sweat..and give you a ton more features depending on what distro you want.

So look at what features you want..and select a distro based on that. IPCop is good...many add-ons for it..but there are other distros that may have the features you want..built right in. I revisited PFSense again recently..and have been running that at home. They just came out with a new version this past Feb..and another major upgrade is due out soon...totally rebuild on the new BSD platform. The QoS/traffic shaping is matured and fantastic...helped my crappy Vonage phone service...lowered my pings in Battlefield 2 quite well too...and compatible VPN with the RV082 we have at the office.

I wouldn't bother with gigabit NICs on the router...unless you have an internet connection faster than 100 megs. ;)
 
I second all of what YeOldeStonecat said. Look at pfSense and Untangle when you're evaluating which *nix distro to go with.
 
don't forget about astaro! They have a 10-user version that is free for home use. QoS, traffic shaping, VPN, content/spam filter. Untangle is very good, haven't used pfSense personally, had good luck with IPCop and Smoothwall back in the day.

Pix is great and everything but you will have so much more you can do with a *nix distro fouter/firewall combo.
 
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