SmoothWall is a GPL distribution of Linux specifically designed to be a router and firewall.
SmoothWall allows you to create a dialup server on your network that has been exhaustively penetration tested and documented and has already proved popular in a myriad of networks large and small.
I have been using Smoothwall since version 0.9.4 to connect my home network to the Internet. Smoothwall is very easy to install and configure, and is ideal to install on that redundant 486 that all of us seem to have. A hard disk of about 100M and 8 to 16 Meg RAM are required, mine has 16 M RAM and works just fine.
Smoothwall provides the following services to your network:
* A dial on request internet connection with selectable profiles for different ISPs
* IP masquarading to give all machines on your network access to the Internet.
* DHCP server for your local network
* SSH, Telnet and ftp access if required for your Smoothwall box
* Name server relay daemon (dnrd)
* Firewall protection for your internal network
Installation:
Download the ISO CD image and burn it to a CD. The CD is bootable if your BIOS supports this. Most old PCs dont support booting from CD so in that case make a bootdisk from the image supplied on the CD. Just a few simple questions and your Smoothwall installation is complete.
Next, go to another machine and point your web browser at the address you just allocated to your smoothwall box. From here you can setup your ISP details, confiure the DHCP server and remote access. When these are done and the settings saved the other machines on your network can be setup to use the smoothwall firewall. I have set Windows machines to use DHCP and Linux to have fixed IP addresses.
Facilities are available to view the logfile with filtering for PPP or Firewall. IP accounting graphs can also be generated to show the data trafiic on the PPP and Ethernet interfaces....
I have found the Firewall log quite an eye-opener. Hardly a day goes by without a mass of entries in the log. Whilst connected using Freeserve, another of their customers is quite merrily scanning IP addresses port 139 which is the Windows Network Session service. ie. This guy was looking for Windows Shares on my network!!!
Smoothwall 0.9.6 only supports alnalogue, dialup modems. The new version 0.9.8 supports ISDN and DSL/Cable modems that have an ethernet interface.
