Setting up a proxy & firewall

I have an old Pentium 166 MXX with 64 MB of memory and 6GB of hard disk, an internet connection via a CABLE MODEM, and an installation CD for Red Hat Linux 9.0.

I am planning to make a TEXT based installation of RHL 9 on that PC because GUI installation will definitely crash the hardware. Then configure that same pc to become my internet proxy server to share the connection to around 20 Windows computers. Also, to protect my network from external 'crackers', i want to configure a firewall.

I know how to install linux, I did it many times already.

My questions are:

1. What particular packages do I need to install for my purpose?
2. What additional resources do I need to continue with my purpose, I heard that I'll be needing two NIC.
3. How to configure the proxy
How to configure the firewall.
4. What additional site can I go to to read more about my objective.

I hope somebody in this very useful site help me accomplish these things.

I WANT TO LEARN.

thanking you,
rodel mayo

Originally posted by mayordc I have an old Pentium 166 MXX with 64 MB of memory and 6GB of hard disk, an internet connection via a CABLE MODEM, and an installation CD for Red Hat Linux 9.0. I am planning to make a TEXT based installation of RHL 9 on that PC because GUI installation will definitely crash the hardware. Then configure that same pc to become my internet proxy server to share the connection to around 20 Windows computers. Also, to protect my network from external 'crackers', i want to configure a firewall.

What particular packages do I need to install for my purpose?

basically, just iptables and squid...

iptables is for the routing/firewalling and squid is the proxy...

What additional resources do I need to continue with my purpose, I heard that I'll be needing two NIC.

one nic will connect to your cable modem, and the other nic will connect to your local area network's switch/hub...

you might be interested in setting-up a dhcp server on the box, to automate the ip configuration of your lan...

http://www.siliconvalleyccie.com/linux-hn/dchp.htm


you might also want to install a dns forwarder to accelerate the dns queries from the lan...

http://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/doc.html

How to configure the proxy

here's a howto on setting squid as a transparent proxy:

http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/TransparentProxy.html

How to configure the firewall.

here's some good resources about iptables:

http://www.linuxguruz.com/iptables/


if you want something a friendly text-based front-end to iptables, try shorewall:

http://www.shorewall.net

What additional site can I go to to read more about my objective.

you could do some googling for "squid" and "iptables"...

http://www.google.com/linux

=)

Thanks win32sux, I'll try all your suggestions. Really, I thank you.

Excellent! This is exactly what I am looking for. Thanks for getting it all together in one place!

Kori