Integrating a linux router into a new (much bigger) network
Greetings!
I will be moving to a new home soon and there will be a lot of work to do to build a good network topology using current equipment and a very limited fund for new equipment. As I am not an expert on networking, I'd very much appreciate some insight. =)
Current situation:
I have a linux box which runs the DSL-connection and acts as a firewall, www-proxy (squid) and dns-proxy (bind) for 3 clients. The clients are all connected to the linux box via a hub.
New situation:
There will be about 8 clients, at least 2 of which must (!) be connected wireless. The other ones will have 10/100mbit lan. We do already have a DSL connection and a device which acts as a DSL-modem, router and wireless access point. It has no integrated hub/switch however; only one ethernet port!
I thought about using the DSL-router device as a modem only (this is possible) and using my linux server to connect through it and serve the clients as it used to. But as far as I know it will not be possible to connect clients via wireless this way as the device will only act as a "dumb" DSL-modem.
However I could let the device make the connection itself and let it act as a router. In that case, the wireless clients would connect to the device directly but they will not be able to benefit from my www-proxy. And my linux box would serve as a router/proxy between the other clients and the router device.
Now I don't know if or how well any of these solutions would work. Is there a better way to give all the clients (wireless and ethernet) access to the internet? I would like to stress the point that I would like as many clients as possible to be able to utilize the www-proxy on my linux server as this would greatly help the performance.
I would be very happy about any suggestions on how I could establish a good and efficient network topology under these circumstances!
PS: I am sorry if I did not make myself clear enough. English is not my mother language but I would very much like to clarify if necessary. =))
Thanks very much for your time!
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