[SWLUG] Router/Firewall

[Daniel Morris]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 01:16:18PM +0100, Terry John wrote:
>
> Is there a NAT type firewall similar to the std broadband router but
> using ethernet both ways or does anyone know where can I get a small low
> power box that I can configure myself.

Take a look at re-purposing a WRT54G or something similar - I'm
currently using Gargoyle and have found it to be very flexible and
really simple to configure (gargoyle is a graphical front-end that
sits on-top of the OpenWrt firmware - it went 1.0 just this week!
http://www.gargoyle-router.com/). 

Of course you can just run a number of the firmware builds for these
class of devices and configure it via a command line interface by
sshi'ing into the box, but just recently I've started to become even
more lazy and gone for the simple GUI.

The only "limitation" that I've run into on Gargoyle is I've started
to use opendns.com to apply smart filtering from non-family friendly
websites (you can easily wind the settings up to eliminate "all
time-wasters") and it would be nice to trigger the update automatically
when my provider changes my IP. Four dynamic DNS suppliers are built
into the firmware and making the update service flexible is on a
wishlist of features to add. 

Note, certain wrt54g's have smaller memory, so check the model number
before trying to re-flash the firmware, but don't be too cautious - I
spent a lot more time reading all the dire warnings than the update
took! I also have the luxury of a UPS at work, which made me feel a 
little better prepared with the recent run of thunderstorms.

There is also the m0n0wall project, which is very configurable and 
we use at one site in work, via a pre-built box. This is FreeBSD based.

 Daniel