Hi,

I currently have a linux box serving mail and website via a cable connection with dynamic IP address

What I want to do is place dedicated linux firewall between it and my internet connection..

The only hardware I have available is an old laptop (pentium2 300ish +128mb Ram). This has 2 network cards - one of which is PCMCIA..

I have looked at IPCOP and Smoothwall - and while both would appear to do what I require - they don't support PCMCIA network cards..

Does anyone know if PCMCIA support can be added to either of these distros or is there any alternatives I could use - ie another general distro and firewall builder...

Thanks

How many computers are in your network? If it is only that one server, you can just edit it's firewall configuration. It depends on the distro, but you should see a "Firewall configuration utility" in your settings somewhere. That way you wont need a separate box.

Linux can act as a firewall/router without any additional sodtware, and it dosent matter what hardware you use. As long as that loptop can connect to the internet, it will work.

Have a look at the KNOPPIX distribution, cd based distribution, and the many projects based from it... particularly INSERT

They are Debian based distros..

I boot mine in userlevel 2 and use a floppy disk with configs..

I intend to use it to protect a network of about 4 pc's..

Insert looks good..

Anyone have any other suggestions?

J

i have written a firewall which includes many functions

port forwarding and redirecting
complete tcp connection blockage
icmp blockage
internet sharing by ip address instead of the incomeing interfaces
it will support up to 3 lan cards
it alters your routeing tables so that local ips are seen so the forwarding and redirecting will work

it is still in beta but seems to be rock solid and not to bad to configure

if you would like to try it I would be happy to offer it

it requires iptables 1.2.7a and is running on mandrake howerver it is not mandrake limited it will run on any distro whic meets the dependencies

I could help you set it up since It is rather large encompassing about 25 files in its entirity and the readme is not done yet

atokad

This is a much better link to start from, gives lots of suitable distributions...

http://www.confederatelinux.com/linux/cdbased.htm