Make Your Own Router - secrets revealed

[Scoobs]

Welcome to The Scream bigbadbarry

Let us no how it goes.

[silver]

glad it's working for you tujags

it's sometimes a pain to setup (least the first time anyway) but once it's going there's not much that can go wrong

Sil

Thanks Silver I must admit there were times I was definitely losing the will to live, but now its up & running it was worth it!

hello,

your post came up on my search engine as i was randomly searching for information! im poorly experienced at computers for someone of my age and i recently bought a computer for my room and i only bought it as it was offered to me for £35.it has wondows nt on it and i want to connect it to the broadband internet we have on a windows xp computer downstairs,if possible wirelessly and using the same internet connection. i think i need an adsl wireless router, but i dont know what a hub is for, ethernet is a mystery and no router on the market seems to accept windows nt with pentium 2 64mb, as able to operate it.

i could use the windows nt computer as a router and maybe buy another one with windows 98 on it but i really dont know how to do this,dont know what i need and whether im getting ripped off for a firewall and transmitter.i could also buy a second hand one on ebay, but i dont want to know why someone would sell one.

any help is much appreciated

steven

If you have a read through all the posts on this subject you will pick up a lot of info. A hub is a small unit with a number of (phone type) sockets in it to connect networked PC's together each PC needs a network card in it this is a PCI card with a socket similar to the hub, each PC is linked to the hub with a network cable from the card to the hub.
Windows NT is an earlier form of XP or XP is a later form of NT depends which way you want to look at it.
If you want to use a PC as an IPCop firewall it does not matter what operating system the PC comes with when you install IPCop it wipes the hard drive clean & installs its' own operating system which is Linux based.
Depending upon your modem you will need either 2 network cards - one for the network & one for the modem or if your modem is USB then you will need a PC that has USB connectors or will have to install a PCI/USB card with a couple of USB sockets. If the PC is old check that the BIOS has USB capability anything that is pre 1997 ish could be a problem.
Hope this helps a bit you probably will have more questions now than before.
I have just installed IPCop myself & had a few problems but there is a lot of help available on this Forum & they guided me through my problems.

[silver]

I'd probably advise that you get a 'adsl wireless router' (note make sure it contains an ADSL modem in it).. then put wireless cards into each PC and you are set - it is that simple

Sil

PS, welcome to TS!

hey thanks for your replies they where really helpful,

i think the old pc is pre-97 so i might just have to splash out the £80 for a wireless "ADSL Router". my brother is doing a computers degree in Liverpool Hope Uni, so he should be able to help a lot. pity hes not back home until easter! the only reason i want to do this is so i can stay up all night playing half life online as im seriously addicted to it now! hours fly by at a time! the next internet search is divx 8,atari emulators,codecs and why my floppy drive doesnt work!!

thanks again

steve

Ipcop seems to be running fine but one of my network PC's keeps losing its IP address & defaulting to a 192.254.. instead of 192.168.1... I notice the network icon in the bottom tray displays a exclamation mark. This PC was the one the ADSL modem connected to.
It has been a bit erratic ever since IPcop was installed & I allocated it a fixed IP address in IPCops DCHP server the PC still has the automatically get an IP address checked. Fixing the address on the PC upsets IPCop. The problem seems to occur when there has been no activity for a while & the screen blanks or no Internet activity for a few minutes. PITA as I have to reboot to restore the connection. Other network PC's are fine.
I have installed a combined USB2 & Firewire PCI card recently without problem.
PC is running XP Pro sp2.
Anybody got any thoughts or ideas?

[Scoobs]

You sure its not trying to use the same ip as another computer on the network when you give it its ip.

"I allocated it a fixed IP address in IPCops DCHP server" how do you do that ? the dchp server gives out a range of ips you set you cant set one to go to a certain computer, wel unless you only set the range to 1 IP then u might as well just set the xp comp to a static ip.

If dchp is on on ip cop then the computer needs to be set to auto get ip.

If dchp is off then you manually add the ip and subnet on the xp computer theres screen shots further back.

I run it here with 3 comps all on static ips , another one runs ip cop with 10 computers and a network printer all set to static ips, all pcs are xp pro with sp2

Is your version is 1.4.2

[silver]

one way is to assign the dhcp to give like numbers from 50-100 and use fixed IPs on the boxes - so that if you plug someone elses PC in then it should get given an IP that won't clash with your fixed IPs.

Not sure what would cause the PC to loose it's IP addy..

if you open a dos window and type

ipconfig /renew

you should prompt the dhcp server to give you an IP

Sil

[StuC]

--A bit off topic but something I use the feature for...

another use for the fixed address range is to identify guest/unwelcome machines on a network, I.E. a client wants to check his mail/vpn out while visiting.
Once he has connected and got a DHCP address from the range available you set a fixed address.
Once he has gone you turn off (disable,don't delete it) that address. If at another time he connects again the IP-Cop will refuse to hand out an address (unless you turn it back on).

If everything on your network has a fixed alocated addresses and you leave just a couple to DHCP then any machines that appear at those addresses can be considered strangers and you can bloke those IP's from services on the network.
If you use software firewalls anywhere you block those addresses.
The idea is that anybody adding a machine to your network gets an address and assumes they can get the same sort of access as other machines on the network, the truth is that they are in a network dead end.

Back to the subject I would delete the fixed mapping and re enter (slightly changed address) to narrow the problem down

Hey Silver, first wanna say thanx for posting this information. I'll be having some fun with this. Secondly, I wanted to know what you thought about using a 486 box to run ipcop. I know most people here are using at least Pentiums. I'm pretty sure I can dig up enough memory to bump into the 32 MB range, but just haven't been able to find any info on min system requirements and didn't know if the 486 would be powerful enough. Thanks for your help.

[silver]

Hi Stitch_n_Time,

The least I've run ipcop on is a p100 with 64 megs ram - that was ipcop 1.2, some time ago and it was fine, over time I've upgraded to use pII350 and pII450, not because ipcop needed it, just that they are the least powerful (and working) boxes I have.

I think the only way to know if it's going to work like you need is to try it, I have heard of people running it on 486's (some time ago at least) so it should install, I think the cpu speed is less of an issue, the more ram you can throw in there (pref min 64 or 128) the better.

good luck and let us know how you get on

Sil

PS, welcome to TS!

[StuC]

I did look for the list of recomended specs, the requirements have been going up steadily.
I ran 0.95/.96 smoothwall on a 486 then went over to a pentium 133/48M ram that would run 1.0 very well.
I think you'd be pushing IPCop 1.4 on a 486. If you must run on that hardware maybe an earlier version would be better or a more basic firewall router like m0n0wall.
I'll see how well 1.4 will run on the 133/48 when I get the chance.
I notice V1.4 uses most of the 128M ram i run at work.

I've given away early pentiums before, its almost worth begging one (I dont mean from me, unless you're in somerset in which case the 133/48M is yours) or are you are determined to run the 486 for recycling reasons.

I entered the mac address for the PIA box & allocated it an IP address outside the DHCP range & its working fine the pc is still setup to get an address automatically IPcop just gives it the same fixed address each time. I tried the ipconfig /renew but it just kept getting the 192.254.. address, don't know where it was finding that address!
Well whatever it seems to be working fine now so I'll let that sleeping dog lie. This particular PC has always been troublesome with network connections before IPCop was installed may be due to Zone Alarm pro installed but again that's behaving itself as well - after a bit of tweaking. I found if you switch off zone alarm windowsXP SP2 bitches like hell because it thinks that there is no firewall running - it's not aware of IPcop.

Oh yes I finally got a reply from Thompson my speedtouch 330 is a rev 3 interesting because I'm sure it using the later download file but again it's working fine.

[silver]

192.254.. address, don't know where it was finding that address

are you running a windows (or other) box on your network with it's DHCP server enabled?

Sil

[Scoobs]

Oh yes I finally got a reply from Thompson my speedtouch 330 is a rev 3 interesting because I'm sure it using the later download file but again it's working fine.

Originally Posted by tujags

Ipcop will tell you the rev number even before you upload any firmware.

[Scoobs]

I found if you switch off zone alarm windowsXP SP2 bitches like hell because it thinks that there is no firewall running

Originally Posted by tujags

You can turn the warnings off same with the other 2 it sticks up

I didnot think window had the DHCP server enabled but I will check & yes IPCop identified my modem as a rev 4 not rev 3 & used the later file - strange!???- but it works!

I had a look from control panel at LAN connection properties/internet protocol properties/advanced & it has DHCP enabled but no obvious means of disabling it.

[silver]

yep - you want dhcp client enabled (if you are running dhcp server on ipcop and assigning IPs dynamically to your PCs)..

I don't know how to check offhand but it's possible to run a dhcp server (i.e. the part that gives out IP addresses) which might confuse things

not explained it v well!

Sil

Reading thro my Windows XP inside out bible It say's that 'The windows internet connection sharing feature inlcludes a full DHCP server that automatically configures all TCP/IPsettings for other computers on the network' but does not using the ICS disable this?
It also says that 'where no DHCP server is available windows automatically assigns an IP address in a specific IP range (APIPA) maybe for some reason it was not seeing IPcops DHCP server & APIPA doled out the strange address.
well at the moment the problem has gone away & all is as it should be, hasn't happened now for 3 or 4 days.
Computers don't you just love 'em!

Hey StuC,
Thanks for your response! As far as the 486 goes, it's just what I had. It had been used in a corporate environment and was a little more beefy than the average 486 I've come across. I actually thought it was a pentium machine at first. Ok, so I had forgotten about a computer that I had picked up a while back mainly cuz of the 19" monitor it was attached to. I went out to check it and it's a p100 machine. I opened it up and found that I could clock it up to 120 and I did. It's got 32 megs of memory and I'm gonna see if I don't have some donor memory that I could scrounge up. I kinda figured that the more memory, the better. If this doesn't work, then I'll try something else. Thanks for your offer of the p133 though. I'm downloading 1.4.1 right now and picked up some nic cards today. I'll post back and let you guys know how it's going. See Ya!

[StuC]

Hi Stitch_n_Time
It's a popular subject now, great to be able to re use older stuff.
I (think) I have a 486 here somewhere, may have to drag it out and try it for others reference ;-)
IPCop can be a bit of an addiction I've managed to convert a few firms to it and don't like to access the net without.
(that said I am currently using SME server as file server, gateway, web server,vpn, mail server, proxy etc.)
For those who have a 486 http://www.wifi.com.ar/english/cdrouter.html requires at least 486/32m ram

On the overclocking the p100, I'd try it first, better for it to run low power/heat than get open the admin pages quicker.
re 32M ram, it will do fair amount of swap file use if you play with the admin side, general use it should just run, dont trun everything on unless you need it though.
The p133 I have was faster than a later mmx pentium (must have had more cache)
most machine will run IPCop in basic use, its just that if you turn on web cache or try to read the web proxy logs prepare for a wait.
From my experience the more logs you turn on the quicker it will fill up an old small disk (then fall over)
a P2-300 with 128M ram 3G drive is about as far as I'd go now (for up to about 40 PC's) I did have IPCop 1.3 on a 1.6G disk but even with only a small cache the IDS/Firewall logs filled the disk regularly

now to find that 486.....

keep us posted

Ok, I have hit a snag in installing IPCop. The install doesn't find the nic when attempting to set up the green interface. The realtek chipset is in the list and I've checked the BIOS to make sure that all the pci busses are enabled, but still no go. Info on the driver disk that came with the nic talks a little about configuring the module manually or compiling it. At this point I am at a loss and am hoping that you guys might have some solutions for me to try. I appreciate your time and effort in this. Thanks. Look forward to hearing from you.

[Scoobs]

I take it the nic does work ?

Have you put it in a different pci slot ? The reltek cards it should auto detect with out any hassle when you probe in the setup

Yes the nics both work. I installed them both in a windows machine and hit the net with them both. IPCops error message says that it's unable to load driver module. I clocked the processor back to original hoping that might fix it, but no go. Do I need to have the nics actually connected to something (i.e. internal network for green and cable modem for red)? Thanks again for the help!

p.s. oh, and there are only two pci slots on this one. the rest are ISA.

[silver]

perhaps it's running short of ram in order to load the drivers (total guess!) can't think what else would stop them working (unless the pci specification changed some and the cards aren't compatible with the old box?).

Sil

Hey Silver,
That's possible. I'm attempting install on another pc. it's a p166 with 40megs. It's newer than the other computer and we'll see what happens. I didn't use it originally cuz I had other plans for it. oh well. we'll see what happens. Thanks.