[Wftl-lug] DSL or cable

[Andrew]

Thanks Paul,

Today when I get home from work, I think I will be calling Charter,
I'm ready to ditch 56k (or should I say 20k if I'm lucky). For the
past couple weeks I haven't even been able to view gmail in standard
mode, only basic HTML and it's still very slow.

Thanks
-Andrew

On 12/9/07, Paul M Foster <paulf at quillandmouse.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 09, 2007 at 11:01:50PM -0500, Andrew wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Gar mentioned using a home commodity router, I'm not that familiar
> > with high speed hardware, could someone shed a little light for me?
>
> There are a couple of ways to do this. First, the cable company will likely
> provide some kind of box that converts cable to RJ45 jacks. RJ45s have 8
> conductors and connect to Cat5 cable. Cat5 looks a lot like phone cable, as
> do its connectors. But with 8 conductors, the connectors and cable are a
> little bit more hefty.
>
> The Cat5 cable that comes out of that box can go a couple of ways. My setup
> is like this: from my DSL modem (with RJ45 jacks, like your cable/Cat5
> converter box), it goes to an old Pentium I machine which serves as a
> router/firewall. It runs IPCop as a "firewall" Linux OS. This box has 2 NIC
> cards in it, one "in" (from the DSL modem), and one "out" to a "switch". A
> switch is a box that has one Cat5/RJ45 input and several outputs (you can
> buy these at computer stores). The outputs are from your switch to each
> computer. Thus, your firewall/router sits between your computers and the
> internet. Like this:
>
> cable->router/firewall->switch->computer(s)
>
> An alternative, and what Gar may have been talking about, is to eliminate
> that firewall/router PC and switch, and replace them with a single box, a
> router, which you can also buy at computer stores. In that case, you have
> this:
>
> cable->router->computer(s)
>
> A router like this is considerably smaller than a PC, and simplifies
> cabling. As I understand it (I've never used a store-bought router), there
> is a web interface to this box which allows you to adjust the parameters of
> your firewall (it also serves as a firewall) from your PC. You can block
> port 80 inbound (so no one can surf to any internal websites you've put
> up). You can block port 22 inbound (SSH). Etc.
>
> The advantage to a store-bought router is that it is simple to cable, and
> relatively simple to set up and administer. You don't have to know a lot
> about TCP/IP packets, firewall rules, etc. The disadvantage is that, as a
> firewall, it is far less flexible and must be administered from your PC,
> since it has no keyboard or screen. By contrast, a PC serving as the
> firewall allows you to run iptables, which is the kernel-level firewalling
> software in Linux. Iptables is unbelievably flexible, and allows you to
> tailor firewall rules in any way you can imagine. The other advantage is
> that I can stand at the firewall, and, with keyboard and monitor, hack the
> firewall machine in any way I like, because it's just a Linux PC.
>
> If you don't really want to know a lot about iptables, and you don't have
> spare old computer, and you don't want to learn the complexities of
> administering IPCop, Coyote, Smoothwall or some other "firewall"
> distribution, then a store-bought router is probably the best option. Me,
> I'm a geek and I want to know how to do this all myself, so I did it all
> the hard (complex) way.
>
> Additionally, your store-bought router may come with wireless capabilities,
> which your old PC firewall probably won't.
>
> Paul
>
> --
> Paul M. Foster
>
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