Mike, SLUG is http://www.svecc.com/SLUG.htm which is a member of the East Valley Association of Linux User Groups which got started around a year ago with assistance from PLUG. We are mostly retired people who use or play with computers. On 12/20/06, Craig White wrote: > > On Wed, 2006-12-20 at 10:37 -0700, Dazed_75 wrote: > > WOW, thanks for all the input. Frankly most of the replies violate > > the first criteria since most seem to require an always on computer > > system (and while a router such as a Linksys WRT54 really is a > > computer, I do not count it for that criteria). And the only solution > > I still see is the one of using a router with dnsmasq. For example by > > using open-wrt on any of the supported routers such as the wrt54gl > > (not the model I currently have). > > > > I am not sure Craigs message denigrating "appliance" devices applies > > to something like open-wrt but I also do not know what djb is and a > > web search was not revealing. I do know that dnsmasq allows you to > > choose lease duration, and my linksys router does retain leases at > > least for their duration. > > > > FYI, machines on my network run Ubuntu 6.06, 6.10, kubuntu 6.06, > > Windows XP, 98SE, and sometimes Win ME, win2k, Mepis, SUSE 10.1, > > puppy, knoppix, DSL, LFS, even tried Mandrake and gentoo. I have not > > run RedHat in years but have run 4, 5, 6, 8, and even 9. Never ran > > Fedora. I probably add and remove an average of two machines per > > week. LOW maintenance is critical. I think a solutuion for me would > > also work for TONS of people with simpler needs and for members of > > SLUG. That is why I would prefer the whole enchilada be in an > > off-the-shelf router. I just have not found one with it built in. > ---- > It's not that I wish to denigrate anything - a simple cable/dsl router > is only going to provide the minimum level of services since one of the > primary objectives is low cost. I think that they get this done in 32 > megabytes of RAM and in virtually 'read only mode'. They simply don't > provide DNS but at best proxy DNS requests. Yes, my commentary applied > to open-wrt package as well since it too must live within the same > constraints. > > dnsmasq as I understand it... > http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html > doesn't do much anything different so you can't expect it to provide > local dns resolution either. In fact the first two sentences of the reference you provide states it DOES support local network name lookups: Dnsmasq is a lightweight, easy to configure DNS forwarder and DHCP server. It is designed to provide DNS and, optionally, DHCP, to a small network. It can serve the names of local machines which are not in the global DNS. and I am not expecting full blown DNS. proxying sounds like exacly what the doctor ordered. Remember this is not for a business with public facing web sites, administrators, or any such thing. It is for maybe 1-5 people sharing some resources or exploring computing technology. It only means your needs are different than mine or the people I am collaborating with. My preference is for a router to be nothing more than a router/firewall > and not provide network services such as those discussed above or any > others and thus, some of the appliances are more than suitable for that > and of course, ipcop operates on hardware with 64 MB if not less. > > I think it's imperative for any network to have a server that provides > infrastructure...file storage, user authentication, host name > resolution, etc. This means that if I want to blow away my desktop > system and do a clean install of some other OS, I can simply do that > since my home folder, my files, my e-mail, etc. all reside on a server > that is safe and generally backed up regularly. > > Craig > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > -- Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss