On 4 Aug 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote: > As you have surmised, this is entirely a doable task. I have, > (and I suspect any number of people on this list do too) a setup > similar to what you envisage; however, I am not sure of the cost of > the required hardware.
I did the same here too, about 15 pcee's hooked up to a linux box hooked up to a cable modem. > On the hardware side, you shall need > a) a Linux box, with a custom kernel which includes firewall and > ipmasq capabilities (I can send you the .config file that I use to > build kernels for my machine that you can use to help getting > started). I think one can get old 486's for around $500, all > included, but I may well be out of date. One of the second hand computer stores here is selling machines for 1$/MHz (cdn too!) I used a P90 with 64M of ram, 3G IDE disk and 2 Dlink Tulip cards (DE-530Ct) Total cost was approximately 600-700$cdn. > b) An ethernet hub, 8 ports (I think 10Mbs is quite good > enough). Cost? I think around $300-400, tops 178$cdn for a 3com Workgroup hub > c) a network card for all the machines you need to connect. You ccan > get ethernet cards startin at $20; I looked at the hradware > compatibility howto and settled for a dec tulip card (I needed > 10/100 cards). If your machines are slow and ISA go find a local used parts store and pick up some used ISA ne-2k's for a few bucks each. > d) Some cable (I went category 5 cable, since it did not seem worth > it to skimp on cabling). Definately! Depending on your building you might have to have it professionally wired to clear any local firecodes... > On the software side, I just got the ipmasq package, and > created a ipmasq file (which I can also send over as a reference). I > run a caching bind server, which helps a lot, and I have created an > internal 192.168.1.0 network. Add diald/ppp to the gateway, and you are > all set. I like to run squid for web proxying and use DHCP to configure the windows machines. Squid saves bandwidth (we get a 49% by byte hitrate here) and DHCP makes windows work quite nicely. (I have a setup for this too if you are interested) Jason -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] < /dev/null
