Bart Garst wrote:
>On Tue, 2003-12-30 at 20:44, Kevin Brown wrote:
>
>
>>>I have looked around the net a bit and can not figure what I do and do
>>>not need to know.
>>>
>>>I am building a desktop/ firewall for my girlfriend that has cox. As
>>>her mother hates me I will not have access to the cable modem before I
>>>drop off the computer, and will not have a ton of time to configure the
>>>computer before getting something thrown at me. The computer that I am
>>>giving away will be protecting the rest of the net from the virus ridden
>>>piece of s* that my girlfriend's mom will not let me fix.All I know
>>>about the cable modem is that it is not a router and that it has cat-5
>>>out. I have no experiece with such things so I am hoping that you could
>>>tell me of the ramifications *or point me to a guide*.
>>>
>>>Should I do anything special when I install debian? (should I tell it a
>>>bs static ip or what?)
>>>
>>>
>>It will need the DHCP client to get an address from cox (and possibly a DHCP
>>server for the systems in the house).
>>
>>
>>>How much time should I assume that I will need to invest to get firewall
>>>builder setup?
>>>
>>>
>>Depends on how secure you want to make it and other needs. A basic config will
>>need to do NAT and prevent outside systems from getting to or through the debian
>>router otherwise.
>>
>>
>>
>
>I think NAT is a bit much (personal opinion). I have a setup similar to
>what you're describing. I have my internal machines using the
>firewall/router as a gateway and have ip_forwarding enabled.
>
>Here's a link similar to the how-to I used:
>http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html
>
>Getting this thing going should be simple, securing it is a different
>matter. I've had to make several adjustments to the firewall rules since
>I got it going. Make sure you can ssh into this machine from the outside
>if they expect you to maintain this system.
>
>Good luck.
>Bart
>
>
>
>
As this is a g/f, not family, or a long time friend, I was thinking
about just setting up debian stable and making a cron job do an apt-get
update; apt-get upgrade every night.
This would be sufficent I trust to keep the box from getting easily cracked?
For that matter I know that it is not a great idea to use a desktop as a
firewall, but is it really that terrible?
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