486 Firewall machines

[Luke Beaumont]

Two identical:

Old Evesham 486 slimline desktop PC, proprietary m/b with ISA riser

16MB in 72pin simms, on board VGA, PS2 connectors

Working 3.5" floppy drive, small hard disk - about 200MB

Two Kingston ISA 10Mbit combo NICs

Freesco floppy to be left in the floppy drive

 

What does this all mean? Freesco is a free, linux based firewall appliance distribution. To simplify things even further, if you are on a broadband connection you can use a machine like this to share the connection between a number of PCs. The other important role is of course securing your internet connection. Perhaps you use software such as ZoneAlarm on your PC; with one of these boxes you create a linux based perimeter. I've used these machines (one as a cold spare) since getting cable over a year ago, and they've proven to be utterly trouble free. They may only be lowly 486 spec but for domestic broadband traffic the performance is ample. I can even help with an old keyboard & monitor to run each one if you want to stick it out of the way somewhere.