Help setting up an ADSL server/hub??

Bluehair

I'm in the queue for ADSL (whenever the engineer gets round here.. sometime after the 14th they tell me) and would like to setup something like the following in my home.

There's two of us here currently networked thru an old 4port-10mbit hub thats seen better days. I'll be upgrading my own pc shortly and will be left with Celeron833/512mb/40gig HD which I was thinking of using as a server or something.

I'm keeping a few things in mind and would like the new setup to be as flexible as possible. Ideally I reckon I'll plump for a 8 or 16 port switch to hook the new 'server' and our two pcs together leaving plenty of ports for future lan-partys.

What we were also thinking of doing (but neither of us have much experience in) was maybe using the 'server' as some sort of firewall/cache/mailserver etc.. Any thoughts on this?

Tips/advice on OSs for the server, mods for games and generally anything else that would maximise this setup would be much appreciated! (there could be an invite to a future lan-weekend in it for ya )

Kali

id reccomend either win2000 or a variety of linux.. both will quite happily sit as a router (between the internal and external/adsl networks) and both are equally suitable as a firewall machine, the linux setup will definitly give you more control routing and firewall wise, and you could run fetchmail or the like on it if required as a sort of inbetween mailserver (bit pointless if you ask me).

if your using it for a general purpose server for games, then win2000 professionals probably the better option tho... might be a good idea to throw an anti-virus program on it as well... no need for any additional proxy software either (although there maybe if you want to cache larger files, i cant remember offhand if theres an option to do that or not with 2000)

The_Bullman

i don't mean to sound stuipid but it might be a good idea for the engineer not to see the network. as far as i know eircom would prefer for the 512mb line not to be used by multiple computers. if you are going for the service which supports 4 users ignore me.

Gerry

Eircom can **** themselves. If they can't handle a 512k line being maxed out a bit, they really are useless.

bricks

The engineers job is to install the splitter he/she doesn't care what computers your connecting it to.
The engineer that installed my ADSL was really sound. He just put the splitter in and then attached it to his laptop to test and since I wanted to install it myself he left a nice long cable for me to use.
As for Eircom they have their 3gig cap so I'd imagine they don't care how you use it.
I use a Pentium-60 with linux installed on it as a router/firewall. And it works pretty well.

Jorinn

I'm going to be doin g the same thing, or similar anyway, basically I'll have a internal network with network connections in each room down to a central switch connected to a DSL line (esat preferably), server will probably be Linux.

I'd advise that you don't run it as a mail server as DSL will at one stage or another disconnect and you mightn't recieve any mail sent to you while it is down ever, sender will just get a daemon email.

You could always run Unix on the server as opposed to Linux, wouldn't particularly advise it though.

Gerry

And why not? FreeBSD is perfect for routing and firewalling with ipfw.

Bluehair

'The_Bullman';

Good point but since we reckon we'd each probably exceed the cap we're gonna go for the multi-user with no cap. Ok at 200euros a month steep but split 2-ways with that kinda unlimited bandwidth it's more attractive.

'Kali';

This sounds right up our street. My housemate has win2000 prof as far as I know and use's it at work quite a bit. Given the heavy games-slant to this server so far this seems to be the best option.. any helpful links I could explore?

As far as unix/linux or a derivative neither of us has used them very much and while I appreciate their relative benefits I think win2k might be the easier option..

(having said that I do have an old p200 that I might play around with in the future along the same lines as 'bricks')

Cheers for the advice so far guys..

JustHalf

If you're going to be using this as a games server as well, I'd recommend Linux. You should be able to free game servers for most major games on Linux. You can definitely get Quake, Quake III, Counterstrike and Half-Life servers.

Unfortunately, you may need to get Windows 2000 Server to run any sort of routing through it. You can share a dial-up network connection with Windows 2000 Professional, but if I remember correctly not a LAN connection.

Just take a bit of time to think about what EXACTLY you're going to be using the machine for, and what you'd like to block on the firewall, before going ahead with it.

Boston

Originally posted by Gerry
Eircom can **** themselves. If they can't handle a 512k line being maxed out a bit, they really are useless.

Its not that, its they want you to upgrade to a more expensive package.

Personal i got myself a router and have the connection split 8 ways

Winters

I was planing to have about 2 or 3 PC's connected to my ADSL line (When I get It). Its just a case of having one server with the ADSL modem connected to it then networking all the other pcs to that server. I would use Win2000 on the server as i need IIS but you could use linux but remember, win98 doesnt connect to a linux server (Correct me if I'm wrong).

flamegrill

Originally posted by Winters
win98 doesnt connect to a linux server (Correct me if I'm wrong).

ok you are wrong :P

using IP masqerading in linux or using NAT with ipf/w in freebsd will allow any machine on a lan to connect flawlessly to the outsideworld. the settings basically for a windows pc are the machine that is connected to the adsl line's ip as the gateway in the tcp/ip config. Simple as pie and works a treat.

helpfull links:
for linux and ip masqing
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Masquerading-Simple-HOWTO/

for freebsd
http://www.freebsd-howto.com/HOWTO/
ipnat and ipf/w howtos respectively.

id recomend Slackware Linux personally for the job. This may cause a flamewar, but its a solid server linux solution.
Redhat and Mandrake are not really suitable for the job to be honest. But they can function correctly with the right configuring, and you may find the use of the GUI install a lot easier to use seeing as you both have not used Unix much ever.

If you go for a unix solution, dont hesitate to ask any questions on the unix board, but b4 you do, please use google.com

Regards,

Paul

sisob

Originally posted by flamegrill



id recomend Slackware Linux personally for the job. This may cause a flamewar, but its a solid server linux solution.
Redhat and Mandrake are not really suitable for the job to be honest. But they can function correctly with the right configuring, and you may find the use of the GUI install a lot easier to use seeing as you both have not used Unix much ever.

slack has it's time and it's place, but personally I would go with mandrake - i share my connection with my lan using my mandrake machine and all I had to do was click "Go" on the internet connection sharing wizzard and now it's all done with DHCP. lovely stuff

JustHalf

Why on earth do you need to use IIS? Talk about insecure... if you're going to use Windows as your server, you can always use Apache.

Winters

Humm. Never used Apache. I like IIS. Its just a pity there such a target.

sisob

Originally posted by Winters
I like IIS. Its just a pity there such a target.

he he - it's a target cus the security is so pittiful

Dr.Seagull

apache for windows is easy to use maybe u should try it sometime

bricks

Goto http://smoothwall.org/community/home/
To get it to work just download the a 20Meg ISO.
Burn to CD, Then boot it up in the P200.
You only have to answer a few questions.
The docs that come with it are easy to follow.
Its like a ready made firewall.
The installation is very simple, only took me 10minutes.
You'll only need a small hard disk in the machine.
100 - 200 Meg at most.