Hello everybody,

I know this may sound strange, but I really need input on this and I dont know anywhere else to ask.

There is a proxy server in the organizaion I work for, we have 7 PCs in our office, and proxy limits our options to retrive mail via POP clients that cant deal with proxy. Plus that many of those in other offices try to hack us and each other in thire free time.

So what I came to, is to build a router to deal with proxy and hackers and we live in peace, pointing to it as a gateway in the network configuration.

My problem is will this work with mail?
and which distro should i use?

thank you for your help and understanding

Since nobody replied, I guess I asked a stupid or an unclear question, so in another form.


Will a Linux Router work BEHIND a PROXY??????


thanks again and I wish someone will reply.

Routers and proxies do different things. Depending on how the network is designed, it might block all outbound traffic that doesn't come from the proxy, and that would force you to use the proxy. Putting your own router behind that wouldn't change anything. In fact, there's nothing you could do by putting another gateway on your local network that could get you around the proxy.

As for the other departments trying to crack your machines, you may be able to limit what they can do by errecting a firewall on your local network segment, but you would have to make sure that all your machines cannot be accessed by bypassing the firewall and routing directly to them, i.e. you would have to create a new network segment behind the firewall and move all your machines onto a switch that was connected to the firewall (or take the current switch and plug it's uplink port into the firewall, but that switch is probably in a wiring closet somewhere).

Even if you do put up a firewall, if you're allowing inbound connections through it, other people could still try to attack the services that run on those ports.

first of all, thank you for your informative reply.

I need the router to act as a transparent tunnel so that different applications that cant deal with the proxy can work, not to bypass it or anything.

thanks

You would have to configure transparent proxying software for that. Squid may be able to do the task for you, but it depends on what protocols you expect it to handle.

I only want it to deal with HTTP, FTP, POP3 and SMTP.

I know that the PROXY can handle them alright since the mac (panther) can connect normally Although ONLY entrouge can do it.

My problem is that I cant find an email client that can deal with proxy on windows, so I though of adding a gateway in the middle to handle that matter for me.

thanks