I have a computer I'm wanting to dedicate yo this. It has about a gig of ram decent older processor. But I want to use it as my router. Where it can can maybe a way Ivan have a web interface for it that would show dhcp clients and maybe bandwidth mointering. But something not to hard to setup. Sorry for the errors lol. I'm using my cell phone
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This article is for you. -
You can also try installing dd-wrt on a PC, but I've heard it's buggy on x86 machines.
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I would not recommend it. Not sure where you are but the power consumption of a PC can easily cost you the price of a dedicated router in a few months time.
A 150N router can be in the range of 20 bucks. A standard PC @ 100W would use 2.4KWh a day. -
There are about three-bazillion firewall/router/email small business server linux distros out there in addition to Microsoft SBS.
Many/most of the linux distros have an option to boot and run from either a cd-rom that you build or from a flash drive. No hard drive needed. Some of the specialist flash drives can be mounted straight on the mobo in the ide or sata ports.
Plenty of readmes and how-tos as well.
If you want to run this machine as a router and a switch, you'll probably spend more $$ buying a handful of multiport ethernet cards than you will on anything else in this server.
I can usually find Intel Pro/1000 quad cards for around $100- each on ebay. If you want 4 port 100 meg cards those can be found as cheap as $20- used. In either case I'd stick with Intel cards only; they are stable as heck and very very well supported in the linux distro world. -
wanting to use a computer as a firewall/router
Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by hyelton, Aug 20, 2011.