I am wanting to setup a content filtering and file sharing computer, and I wanted to hear thoughts on feasability of what I am wanting.

Here are the specs of the machine that I will be using:

Pentium 233MMx (Yes, slow, I know, but it is a small HP Pavilion, and I am running out of space)
64Megs of RAM
Hard Drive (I have anywhere from 1 to 8 gig drives avaiable, although the smaller the better)

I already have a home network setup, with a FreeNAS box that hosts all of my files, a m0n0wall box serving as my router, and several desktop and a laptop as clients, all hooked to a 10/100 switch.

I am wanting to isolate my kid's computer from the big bad internet a little more, to make sure that they do not stumble across undesirable web pages. I want to set up a content filter (was reading up on Dansguardian), along with a 40 gig hard drive in the same box that I can copy all of their game CDs onto as ISO files, which I could then use DaemonTools along with the DaemonScript addon to automatically mount and start their games when they want to play them.

Network as I am wanting it to work:

INet --> m0n0wall --> Switch --> Slackcontentfilter --> kids comp

I have looked at IPCop and Smoothwall for doing this, but both of them are fairly closed systems, and highly discourage adding Samba to either one, with rather nasty comments for other who hgave asked the same question, stating that a firewall should not be a fileserver, which I do agree with in most circumstances.

Considerings the small horsepower of this box, I'm asking if Slackware might be able to be pressed into this capacity, as I know that it has pretty small hardware requirements. I do not need, nor want, X, or any other graphical capabilities. I am comfortable using vi to edit config files, and understand the basics how *nix works, as I have been using ClarkConnect for several years, along with several other distros.

In fact, Clarkconnect was my first thought when I decided I wanted to do this, but the hardware requirements have gotten rather steep with the move to CentOS 4 (or is it 5?).

Any thoughts on doing this, and whether dansguardian and squid are already included in slackware are welcome. As far as I can tell, that is the only software that I should be concerned with NOT being in Slack, as I know that iptables, samba, etc will be there.

I am also looking for info on what I can safely prune out of slackware (X system, etc), to get it down as small as possible, as well as possible places to look for info on reducing the size of Slack. Or is it better to start with ZipSlack and work my way up from there, to get the smallest possible system?

Well, I currently have Slackware 11 on a Pentium 166MMX laptop. It's not working perfectly yet, but it's getting there, and is suprisingly snappy for a system that's a decade old. Anyway, Slack should be fine on the system you describe.

As far as the minimum you need to install to get slackware running, just most of the packages in /a. You'll probably want a few out of /ap as well, though.

Two articles I wrote about content filtering and transparent proxies using dansguardian and tinyproxy: http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...lackware:proxy and http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...arentalcontrol

You should be able to replace tinyproxy with squid fairly easily, but since you're talking about low-end hardware I would definitely advise not to use squid.

Eric

Edit: links to my Slackware packages for dansguardian and tinyproxy can be found in those two Wiki articles.

As was said above, most of the /a group is needed. There's a few packages in there that are very specific, like genpower and pcmcia, that could be removed if you don't have that equipment present. ACPI and APMD can go as well if you aren't going to need power management.

Nothing else is really necessary. To use a basic ethernet network connection, you'll need dhcpcd and tcpip out of /n. You could start with that barebones and then add things as you need it, that's kind of how I do my systems.

Thank you for the replies. Right now I am having issues booting the CD, and will be doing research on that soon. Once I do have it up and running, however, I will be attempting to install everything and get it set up.


Alien Bob, those are some excellent pages, well written for even someone like me to follow. Thanks!! I did not even know about the EXISTENCE of tinyproxy, and will read up more on that when the time comes. As far as I knew, squid was the big man around town, nice to know there are alternatives.

zytsef, nice to know that the hardware that I have should be able to run Slackware.

With the kind of hardware you describe you'll probably need to make a boot disk and some root disks to get the system up and able to run setup (we're talking floppies here). On another system with a floppy drive look on the first CD for bootdisks/ and use dd to copy the bare.i image to a floppy (if you're using Linux, use the included RAWRITE DOS program if you're using windows). Then go the rootdisks/ and do the same for install.1 and install.2. Then you should be able to pop them in the old machine in order to get to a linux prompt where you can then install from the cd. Isn't old hardware wonderful?

I found out that the Bittorrent copies of the install cd's were corrupted somehow, so I redownloaded them using one of the FTP mirrors.

I am still having issues with a few packages saying corrupt during the installation, and hopefully after the install is done that is running now I will at least have pkgtool so that I can reinstall the ones that had errors. First time around I didn't even have ls!!!!

Another question kinda on this same subject, if I can teach myself enough about this to create a fairly stable system, are there any guides for reducing the size of a Slackware instal, and creating custom LiveCD, or custom install CDs? I think there may be enough of an interest for a filtering 'appliance' type thing that maybe I can offer it up for other interested.


Thanks

as for the live cd, i guess this is suitable http://www.linux-live.org/, i havent tried it yet so im not sure... i hope this could help..