PC as Router using many NIC's, no hub?

R

rygy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 19, 2003
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I have an old P2 200MHz or so and have seen people use Coyote Linux as a software based router. I have only seen people do this by having the modem connect to the first NIC in the PC then having a second NIC connect to a hub. What I want to do is buy a NIC for every PC on the network to be installed in the PC-as-router.

Will Coyote Linux do this for me? Will I be able to configure all 4 NIC's in the PC-as-router to have 3 other PC's connected directly to the PC-as-router and the modem connected as the input? If anyone can help that'd be great.
 
Nope it wouldn't work, plus the PCI bus wouldn't be able to handle all the traffic like a switch would even if it did. Switches are cheap, just buy one, mount it in your case if you want it in all one PC.
 
Originally posted by mjones73
Nope it wouldn't work, plus the PCI bus wouldn't be able to handle all the traffic like a switch would even if it did. Switches are cheap, just buy one, mount it in your case if you want it in all one PC.
Click to expand...

Actually, it would work fine for what he described. It, of course is not a very good idea for a number of reasons.

1) Every PC would reside on a different network

2) The performance would be sub par

3) It's a waste of some perfectly good NIC's :)

My firewall/router at home has 4 interfaces in it. One External interface, one internal interface, one DMZ interface, and an interface on my wireless segment where my AP lives (this is so that i can create VPN tunnels between my clients and the firewall to keep out those that do not belong). My firewall is Checkpoint NG and I use SecureClient for the VPN connections.
 
To elaborate further, it would work fine.

Using linux bridging you could bridge all the cards connected to PCs so that the router effectively act as a switch (or hub, I'm not sure which really applies in that case). The performance would be hindered by the PCI bus bandwidth though.


The bridge device could then be NATed to the outside and all would work.

It'd just be easier, more cost effictive, and faster to buy a switch.
 
I looked into doing this once but found that just for 4 or 5 client PCs it would be faster, cheaper and a lot easier to setup to just use a switch.
 
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