I did not mean to offend. Sorry. Darren R. Weber wrote: [big snip]
Ok this is getting a little long here, but just to clear the air I didn't say to ignore security or that I didn't understand the implications of an insecure system. I simply made an offhand comment that I have nothing worth having on my system.
I guess I'm very paranoid. Or a control freak (wanting to control who has access to my machines).
I've been using ipchains for months and reading about this whenever I have a spare moment, not to mention the systems I run for a living so I am not new at this. I am just somewhat new to the Linux way of doing it. I've been using SuSE since 5.3 about a year ago, but I've only been using the networking features heavily for the last 4 months since I got my ADSL setup.
As for setting up another system just as my firewall: The issue isn't about cost or work it's space and electricity more than anything. When you have an office roughly 10 x 12 ft. with 2 computers both with large monitors a scanner 2 printers a fax machine, a hub, 2 ups systems an ADSL modem, video camera, paper shreader, phones, speakers and the rest of the works all plugged in on one circuit the last thing you want to do is plug in another box just to route packets. I have a perfectly good pentium133 and 2 3com net cards sitting in the other room unused. I simply have nowhere to put the stuff.
Probably my submarine past coming out - I've got five systems and a 16 port hub tucked on top of my desk. I love desktop cases.
My hope actually is to get one of the old laptops from work when we upgrade. I have one now running SuSE and it works great and takes up very little space. I thought with the addition of one more net card it would make a perfect space-saving router. As a bonus I wouldn't have to telnet or ssh to it because it will have a built in console. :-)
I thought of that, too! Unfortunately, my laptop's hard drive has a tendancy to die after it's been on for three days or more. Fujitsu may become tired of me soon.
Thanks to George though for the comments. I visited your site some months ago and found it very helpfull. Haven't gone back recently though been to busy with other projects.
Thank you! -- George Toft http://www.georgetoft.com -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/