Old PC To New Router With Gentoo Linux

September 1st, 2006 - By: Alex Bailey

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Don't throw that old PC away just yet, it still has some life in it yet. No matter how bad your old PC is it can always be used as a router, and your old router as a switch. All you need is two nic cards for it. Originally I did this on a Pentium 3 with 256 MBs of memory. I had that setup for around 6 months before the computer finally died. Never quite figured it out but it was either the processor or the mother board. But anyways on with the show. I will be setting this up on an AMD 3200 XP processor with one gigabyte of memory, an nForce 2 chipset and 450 gigs of hard drive space. The linux distribution I'm using is going to be Gentoo linux. Assuming you've already got the system setup and running correctly we will start with kernel configuration. Don't freak out it's not that hard to do.

cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig

You should be at a screen with a few options. Navigate the screen as follows:

Networking --> Network options -->
	[*] TCP/IP networking
		<*> IP: advanced router
Scroll down about to
	[*] Network packet filtering (replaces ipchains)
Star it hit enter and go to
		IP: Netfilter Configuration
	[*] Connection tracking (required for masq/NAT)
		<*>   FTP protocol support
		<*>   IRC protocol support
	[*] IP tables support (required for filtering/masq/NAT)
		<*> IP range match support
		<*> Packet filtering
	[*] Full NAT
		<*> MASQUERADE target support
	[s] Packet mangling
Networking Network options
	QoS and/or fair queueing
	[*] QoS and/or fair queueing
		<*> Hierarchical Token Bucket (HTB)
		<*>   Ingress Qdisc
Device Drivers
Network device support
	[*] PPP (point-to-point protocol) support
		<*> PPP filtering
		<*> PPP support for async serial ports
		<*> PPP support for sync tty ports
		<*> PPP Deflate compression
		<*> PPP BSD-Compress compression
		<*> PPP over Ethernet

Click exit all the way out until it asks you to save. Click yes to save and in terminal type:

make && make modules_install

Yup you're officially compiling the kernel. Get some food or something because depending on your system it might take a while :). When that is done compiling, copy the binary to /boot with:

cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.17-gentoo-r5

Obviously you'll need to use the name of your old kernel, as that might not be the name of yours. Now from here the steps are different depending on how you connect to the internet. I use cable so I don't have to worry about PPPoE. I'll go over a cable setup first. If you don't have it already you will need dhcpcd.

emerge dhcpcd

Then you'll need to make another interface for your second nic by using a symbolic link, and make them all start on boot.

ln -s net.lo /etc/init.d/net.eth1
rc-update add net.eth1 default
rc-update add net.eth0 default

If you're using DSL/PPPoE you'll need to do this: (Straight from gentoo handbook)

# nano /etc/ppp/pap-secrets
# client server secret
"vla9h924" * "password"
# nano /etc/conf.d/net
Tell baselayout to use adsl for your eth1:
config_eth1=( "adsl" )
user_eth1=( "vla9h924" )
(Replace 'vla9h924' with your username and 'password' with your password)

Next you'll need to configure your LAN and WAN interface. I used eth1 as WAN and eth0 as LAN. To do this we need to configure /etc/conf.d/net

For a dynamic or even semi static (Comcast users):
config_eth1=( "dhcp" )
Static IP: (From gentoo manual never used a static IP)
config_eth1=( "66.92.78.102 broadcast 66.92.78.255 netmask 255.255.255.0" )
routes_eth1=( "default gw 66.92.78.1" )
And finally both users must add:
config_eth0=( "192.168.1.1 broadcast 192.168.1.255 netmask 255.255.255.0" )

Almost done, all we need is a firewall to protect us since we are wide open on the internet, and some NAT rules to forward traffic.

cd /etc/init.d/
wget http://cyber-knowledge.net/blog/extras/firewall
wget http://cyber-knowledge.net/blog/extras/natrouting
chmod 700 natrouting
chmod 700 firewall
rc-update add firewall default
rc-update add natrouting default

Double check those scripts to make sure everything is correct for your LAN/WAN in there. Hook up the cables so that the one coming from your modem is in the WAN port, and the one from your LAN port is going into the LAN port of a switch or your old router. Usually the WAN port on a switch is separated from the rest. If you plug more LAN cables in to that switch, all computers will have internet. If you're using your old router make sure you change your old routers IP to 192.168.1.2 or something before using it as a switch. Reboot your computer and everything should start fine. The WAN interface should have gotten an external IP while the LAN should have gotten 192.168.1.1. If not, restart your modem by unplugging it and plugging it back in. Then restart the WAN interface by doing:

/etc/init.d/net.eth1 restart

Hopefully it worked that time. Keep in mind all PCs you hook up to the network will now have to be configured to use a static IP address. For more information on that see the Microsoft website. Some hints while doing it. The IP can be 192.168.1.100 through .255. The default gateway is 192.168.1.1. Your subnet mask should fill in automatically. The name server can be found in /etc/resolv.conf of your router or you can use 4.2.2.1. With all luck you have internet and a much faster router :D. Have fun, and comment if this worked for you or you had any issues.

Other thoughts

310-200 as well as 642-565 are very easy if one has been studying for 70-270 and 70-282. This helps one in going for VCP-310 and usually people skip 70-292 totally.

How I For A Free Hard Drive From Maxtor

Worst Tech Support Call With Dell. You Suck Dell.

Dualboot Gentoo + Windows XP On A Dell Inspiron E1505

Part 2 Of Gentoo Router: Samba And TrueCrypt

Firefox Extension: Save Website As An Image

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1. RMX | September 1st, 2006 @ 11:29 PM | +1

Why always a router? Seems this is the most common thing people do with old PCs; but the small hardware box has so many advantages (quieter because of no fan; more reliable because no disk to fail; much less power; much less space) that this is a pretty silly use for an old PC.

Personally, I fill my old PCs with disk drives and use them as high-volume file servers - even a “old” pentium 2 is plenty fast enough to keep up with my wireless network and software RAID - it’s pretty nice to have 1.5TB lying around.

Now if you do like playing with one of these as a router; it’s even cooler to put in a wireless card and making it a wireless access point too — I have one set up that can be shared with my neigbors and the coffee shop on the corner access outside my firewall as well as giving myself secure access inside my firewall.
2. lilricky | September 1st, 2006 @ 11:41 PM | --1

you took a pc consisting of a 3200 xp processor, 1 gig of ram and 450 gigs of hard drive space and made it into a router??? Can you say overkill? Im using a 486 with 32 megs of ram and a 2 gig harddrive, and I still only get about 32% cpu load max.
3. David | September 1st, 2006 @ 11:48 PM | --4

ok, u’ve saved the PC from going to the landfil or recycle-land… do u hate our planet earth that much? what about the energy consumption to power entire PC as router? what u r proposing is basically accelerating the energy shortage, global warming, hike in oil price… not a good idea…
4. JPerry | September 1st, 2006 @ 11:49 PM | +1

Have you ever heard of a product called Freesco
Freesco turns ANY old computer into a router WITH booting on a Floppy only! Its great
Check it out
5. chuck | September 2nd, 2006 @ 12:14 AM | --2

ipcop
6. Gentoo User | September 2nd, 2006 @ 12:19 AM | +0

Great guide! Though you may want to add that with a processor older than a Pentium 3 generation, particularly below Pentium 2 first generation, the compile times for a Gentoo firewall box may not be too desireable.
7. Callandor | September 2nd, 2006 @ 1:06 AM | +0

Your idea of an ‘old’ rig has 450gb hdd space, a gig of ram and a 3200XP?

Other than that, nice work, though Gentoo might not be the most user friendly distro for this.
8. rewired | September 2nd, 2006 @ 1:23 AM | +0

or you could just use m0n0wall (m0n0.ch/wall) or pfsense.

These are both open source firewall apps, built on freebsd (4.11, and 6.1), and are amazingly feature rich. They will take that old pentium 233 and make it into a router that will host 40 machines easily.
9. CRAZYNETWRKN | September 2nd, 2006 @ 2:45 AM | +0

an old PC? “AMD 3200 XP processor with one gigabyte of memory, an nForce 2 chipset and 450 gigs of hard drive space”!! admittedly the earlier model “Pentium 3 with 256 MBs of memory” is old(er), but i was thinking more pII with 64 MB RAM… is it workable?
10. Rub3X | September 2nd, 2006 @ 3:16 AM | +1

Lol well it’s a network file server as well that is why it needs to be good. Also my P3 died which I was previously using. I don’t know what else to use this PC for except a file server/router.
11. flux | September 2nd, 2006 @ 3:40 AM | +1

ae there scripts for making this a load balancing router
12. isocketnet | September 2nd, 2006 @ 4:18 AM | +1

If you are going to use a full-feature computer you might as well use Clark Connect. You’ll get web caching, firewall, mail servers, ad blocking and much more all ready to configure with web interface. That’s what I did with old system. Uses hard drive for large web-cache, cool!
13. Lalit Tankala | September 2nd, 2006 @ 7:41 AM | +1

Nice Information……as i have to also do the same.
14. Alister | September 2nd, 2006 @ 9:06 AM | +0

Smoothwall, IPCop have done this already turning an old PC into something workable!
15. TC | September 2nd, 2006 @ 12:07 PM | +0

I use a PII 350Mhz for dhcp, dns, and NAT/Firewall. only 384MB ram. It runs great with 4 other PC’s on the network. This is all at home.
16. Rama | September 2nd, 2006 @ 12:51 PM | --1

Article quotes installing on an “…AMD 3200 XP processor with one gigabyte of memory, an nForce 2 chipset and 450 gigs of hard drive…”

And trying to tell us this is on an Old PC?

The title of this article is misleading!

There are better guides at howtoforge.com/
17. Kirt | September 2nd, 2006 @ 3:36 PM | +0

why bother with all this trouble, when you can just use m0n0wall? it’s a FreeBSD based router distro. and it’s bad ass, i’ve been using it extensively at my home, my business, and at nearly all my client’s networks.

http://www.m0n0.ch

no hard drive needed (less noise and heat), because you simply boot the whole thing off a CD (it uses a flopy drive to save the configuration). it supports almost everything anyone would want to do with a router right “out of the box”, including robust VPN, DMZ, and Traffic Shaping.

don’t get me wrong, gentoo is nice. but why install a full OS when you can boot a pre-configured and tested router OS in 30 seconds?
18. Lilricky | September 2nd, 2006 @ 3:46 PM | +0

You say you didnt know what else you could use this pc for other than a router/file server? Slap a tv tuner or 2 in there and make it a pretty decent PVR.
19. tape | September 2nd, 2006 @ 4:19 PM | +0

Athlon XP 3200? christ.

until about 9 months ago, I did this with a 90MHz Pentium. it ran very well the whole time, with a whopping 96MB of RAM and 3GB of disks, but the power supply died and I had an unused 500MHz K6-II sitting around so I started using that instead.

I’d say even that is overkill for just a router, but I also run a small website with perl/mysql stuff and email and ftp on the machine as well. it keeps up just fine.

your Athlon XP should be doing something else, like being the same processor I have on this computer I’m using to do everything.
20. TAMA_drummer_73 | September 2nd, 2006 @ 4:41 PM | +0

clarkconnect.com Its what I’ve been using for the past 3 years.
21. Kirt | September 2nd, 2006 @ 10:38 PM | +2

smoothwall is ok, i used it for a while. however, the free version is quite limited in what it can do.

in addition, the guys that run smoothwall are complete (and i mean *COMPLETE*) assholes.

for example, i went into the official IRC channel in an attempt to get a small amount of support for a feature i wanted to try out. i was immediately greeted with attitudes from the developers, and they demanded to know if i had donated to support the project. i had, and told them i donated $25. the reply i got, from the lead developer no less, was “well, the 30 seconds of my time you’ve wasted so far is worth $25, so piss off” and then he banned me, not only from the channel but from their server. at that point i went looking for something better, found m0n0wall, and uninstalled EVERY instance myself or any of my customers had of smoothwall (including about 20 networks that paid for the corporate version of smoothwall as well).

incidentally, even other smoothwall devs were not spared this insane attitude from the lead developer. IPCop was founded by guys that left the smoothwall project because dealing with the egomaniacal “management” was ridiculous.

m0n0wall is WAY better than smoothwall, in functionality, support, and philosophy.
22. Kirt | September 2nd, 2006 @ 10:39 PM | +1

also, you have to pay for clarkconnect.

m0n0wall is free.
23. Jammywanks | September 2nd, 2006 @ 11:52 PM | +1

^^ A couple posts up. First of all, most people on IRC are assholes. Even in “#Windowshelp” channels, forget about it. Many years ago I asked a simple question in a javahelp channel and they gave me some “maybe java is not for you” type of response. Seriously, people on IRC need to lose their ego’s, wake up and get with the program and start posting on forums. Actually, no, they should stay where they are and stay the fuck off of my forums.
24. drewd | September 2nd, 2006 @ 11:56 PM | +0

Huh. My Linksys WRT54G does all of this in a tiny box that uses next to no power and is wireless to boot. Other than the very minor “gee whiz” factor, I have to wonder…why?
25. Rub3X | September 2nd, 2006 @ 11:57 PM | +0

Hmm I use IRC all the time, and I’ve never had any issues. I use freenode for my support needs. #MySql #SQL #Php #Gentoo are the main ones I need help in. Always nice people no “RTFM” shit. This server could use some users irc.cyber-knowledge.net #Main if you guys want :).

@drewd
I like to have full control of my network. I can limit b/w usage for other PCs. I can filter certain protocols like IRC on my mom’s PC to prevent botnet infections. I can limit the number of hours people use the internet. Filter websites. Ethreal scan the whole network. Granted you can do _some_ of those things on standard home routers, but this is just..well cool. If the PC is up as a file server already why not do it? And to all of the people posting alternatives to this, I already know about them and have tried some of them. This was just another alternative to all the others, just thought it would be cool to do.
26. peter | September 3rd, 2006 @ 12:22 AM | +0

Cool beans!.. I already have an ipcop machine which does all this. If you could write one with the firewall/router and a radius server built in, that’d be great.

Cheers!

:oPeter
27. kraken | September 3rd, 2006 @ 12:29 PM | +1

Hmmm… “what other uses other than fileserver/router?”

At home, I have set up an old DELL XPS M166 (Yep, first-generation Pentium 166MHz) as a file server, firewall/router for 2 subnets, primary domain controller (using Samba, of course!), pdf-generating server (Praise to the samba and ghostscript combo), print server (hp jetdirect software), and mail-fetcher/sorter (pop3d + fetchmail). The only thing it doesn’t do is the dishes…

It runs on an older linux distro (Red Hat 7), and I keep it lightly loaded. The only drawback I can see to my setup is the motherboard’s inability to take more than 64Mb of RAM.
28. MToth | September 3rd, 2006 @ 1:02 PM | +0

Everything about this project is just soo “wrong” :) What an overkill, you let a 3200 run day + night for nothing, that should be forbidden… ;)

Gosh, what you did fits on a Linux boot floppy, and you don’t need more than a P I and 12 MB RAM. There are even preconfigured ones on the internet..
29. xERO | September 3rd, 2006 @ 3:38 PM | --1

Why would u really want to use gentoo?!?! why not simply use a pre-configured psd or other linux platform thats already all set up for routing with a great web interface??
if you really wanna do this, why not check out monowall or smoothwall as well as their derivitive distros?? i personaly use PFSense, which is based off of monowall, BSD, free, and very easy to use/configure. save yourself the headache from gentoo.
30. Anoop Thomas | September 3rd, 2006 @ 3:42 PM | +0

Sure it is an overkill.

I have an old pentium 200MHz PC with 128MB of RAM, 20GB HDD and I am using it to download stuff from the net(Automated, remote administration). Total power consumption including the ADSL modem
31. Mike | September 3rd, 2006 @ 3:42 PM | +1

I would just like to point out that that is a very difficult setup for most users. There is a program that is much easer in fact you can be up and running in about 10 minuets with out all of the command prompt stuff.

Freesco (for Free Sysco)
freesco.org/
32. Rub3X | September 3rd, 2006 @ 3:51 PM | +0

Some of you have suggested running a router off of a cd and saving the data to a floppy. A router is the most important thing in a network, and I don’t see the point of making it slow. Running off a live cd would be way slower than drawing data directly from the hard drive. You guys say a gig of ram is over kill but I can’t imagine running a live cd of any kind off a PC with 64 MBs of ram. Anyways the current uses for this router for me are a network file server with truecrypt and samba, a time server, a network web server with PHP MySql FTP SSH. With all those things running on it I would not want a slow box. I have at least 100 gigs used up on that thing and often transfer gigs at a time off of it. I plan to try 5 of those distros you guys told me about however. The next plan on this router is to pop in a wireless card so I can have wireless internet throughout my house for my laptop, while still maintaining a wired network as well. I’ll post back if I ever set that up.
33. ksquared | September 3rd, 2006 @ 4:10 PM | +0

Exactly! Not quite sure why anyone would want to go through this when IPcop or Smoothwall are out there. So do yourselves a favor and check those out first… I did.
34. Mike mixer | September 3rd, 2006 @ 4:25 PM | +0

Hmmm! I’ve got a weird tickling idea in my head. I have an old centrino with a busted lcd. I wonder if I could set up a router in an old box and still use it to play video and web surf by hooking a tv
up to a video card with tv out in the nix router box. Kind of like web tv only real web. I could set in my easy chair and use the laptop as a kind of remote control for thr nix box. I gotta feeling
this is going tp bug me now.
35. Dazedan | September 3rd, 2006 @ 6:19 PM | +1

I do the same thing with an old P3 600MHz 64MB and 4 40GB HDs running on W2k. Makes and great router/file server/web server and was extremely easy to setup. You can use any of a number of free firewall solutions available. I know all the Linsux fans will call this blasphemy so save your breath.
36. Rub3X | September 3rd, 2006 @ 6:27 PM | +0

He calls it Linsux and doesn’t subscribe to the comment which I can only assume means he can’t explain why it sucks. I love Windows (XP) as well and use it as a desktop, but would never use it as a server or router. W/e to each his own.
37. Trooper | September 6th, 2006 @ 10:29 AM | +0

OLD PC??????????????

A max router config should be no more then an 486 or P1
Pro’s of this setup

- Low power comsumption
- Low noise.
- Cheap.
- Most f the cases or small
- Still have floppy drives (for SCO linux, a floppy router)
38. Grig | September 6th, 2006 @ 3:20 PM | +0

So, I’m thinking, “Hey, I’ll read up.” I have a lot of old boxes. So it starts off like this:

“Donâ€™t throw that old PC away just yet, it still has some life in it yet.”

Okay! I am all for recycling.

“No matter how bad your old PC is it can always be used as a router, and your old router as a switch.”

Um… why? I’ll read on.

“All you need is two nic cards for it.”

I used to cringe at “NIC card” like “ATM Machine,” but I tell myself the “C” means “controller.” But keep in mind, in his example, you just took a multi-port router and turned it into a switch, and now you’re turning a computer into a router. Okay, maybe you have some really complicated routing to do that Cisco IOS or whatever can’t handle.

“Originally I did this on a Pentium 3 with 256 MBs of memory. I had that setup for around 6 months before the computer finally died. Never quite figured it out but it was either the processor or the mother board. But anyways on with the show.”

Well… okay. Not exactly confidence-inspiring or on topic, but I guess we have all been there. Yeah, on with the show…

“I will be setting this up on an AMD 3200 XP processor with one gigabyte of memory, an nForce 2 chipset and 450 gigs of hard drive space.”

Woah woah woah! WTF, an AMD 3200 XP with a GB of RAM? As a router? That’s like using a Sherman tank to go down the driveway and get your mail. This isn’t exactly an “old box” either, that’s only a few years old. Must be nice to be you, with a whole lot of junk 3200 spares lying about. Get this, my Linux gateway for my whole house, inclduing SETI arrays and everything, does DNS, DHCP, iptables firewall and packet forwarding, DMZ, snort IDS, VPN, squid web cache proxy, snmp, with a web interface that has graphing showing processor use, traffic, and whatnot. All that… in a Dual P2/400 box with 512 RAM and 3gb hard drive space. And the top load I have EVER seen was 0.01, and that’s at boot. My setup is also overkill, but my other old boxes didn’t have enough PCI slots for the 100base NICs I wanted to use (I had ISA NICs, but they were 10base). I have a 200watt power supply on that, what do you have on a 3200XP? 350? 400? That’s a lot of wattage for such little work.

“The linux distribution Iâ€™m using is going to be Gentoo linux. Assuming youâ€™ve already got the system setup and running correctly we will start with kernel configuration.”

Why Gentoo? That also seems too bleeding edge, and besides, the OS takes a long time to compile and set up. Why not, say, Fedora, Ubuntu, or even Slackware? If you assume that I can get a Gentoo system up and working, which is no small feat in itself, I think I have the skills a bit above this article. It took me 24 hours to get a stage 2 version of Gentoo working on a P4/2.4 ghx, about the same speed as the 3200 XP you have there.

“Donâ€™t freak out itâ€™s not that hard to do.”

Nah, I am freaking out that you are using a Sherman tank, which you built from scrap metal, to go down your driveway and pick up the mail.
39. Bill Ward | September 6th, 2006 @ 6:12 PM | +0

While I’m obviously not unbiased (I was one of the developers for a while of Smoothwall, when it was first starting off, and one of the developers at large, so to speak, for IPCop sometime later, and my wife is STILL on the IPCop team), I have to agree with a lot of posts that using Gentoo is overkill; most folks this would be aimed at would prefer either a pre-rolled installation (Smoothwall Free, IPCop, M0n0wall, or even Clark Connect), or ALREADY KNOW THIS if they would be doing a roll your own…

And even today, that machine that he’s using is better than all but two of the 11 machines at my home… and it’s only marginally worse than either of them (a Sempron 3000 64bit with 2GB of RAM, and 380GB of HDD storage, or a laptop A64-3000 with 1.5 GB of RAM, a 60GB HDD, and a 160 GB external drive).

Our IPCop box at home (it was a replacement for our old box, which died the final death during an upgrade in April - that one was actually used when I was actively doing development, too, and was a P133, 24 MB of RAM, 1.2 GB HDD, from 1996) that we use as our router now is a >!99799.9%, barring Hurricanes. The old one was just as good; it never failed us until we powered it down to do those upgrades, and she didn’t turn on again… sniff, she is missed, even today, since that machine was my present for getting my Masters, originally.

I know of folks using P90s, even one who uses a 486 DX 25 (I did for a while as a purely developmental machine, by the way) with even lighter stats (16 MB of RAM, 250 MB HDD).

How about we make a trade; you send me the Xp3200 machine, and I’ll send you a fully setup IPCop running on 800 MHz Athlon, with 512MB, and a 20GB HDD?

Yes, I did catch your comment about using it as a file server… that last is tongue in cheek (though if you are interested……)
40. Rub3X | September 6th, 2006 @ 6:29 PM | +0

“The old one was just as good; it never failed us until we powered it down to do those upgrades, and she didnâ€™t turn on againâ€¦ sniff,”

Yea that’s exactly what happened to my old router. Was running with a 3-4 month uptime. Went to do a reboot because of a kernel upgrade and well. Never turned on again. By the way where did you find my site, cause this article has been off all the social book marking sites for a while >.<
41. mike sonni | September 21st, 2006 @ 9:55 PM | +0

damn… lotta cranky awnry bitches up in here :P some nice guy writes up a helpful doc and all you can do is crab about how his hardware is way cooler than yours?

and the global warming guy… go buy a bus pass and plant a tree — get off the energy hungry internet you chubby lesbian. :)
42. Rama | September 25th, 2006 @ 11:34 PM | +0

@mike sonni

We are complaining because the article was misleading the title CLEARLY says “Old PC…”
An AMD 3200XP is not an old PC. Your comment wins the “Pull my Finger Award”. Here… pull my finger…

DUH!!!
43. Enlisted Coast Guard IT | September 26th, 2006 @ 4:19 AM | +0

Time to ramble.

I used Coyote Linux Floppy Edition (http://www.vortech.net) on an old P166 with 64MB of RAM. It runs off of a single 3.5″ floppy and into RAM. It is content to run on a 386 with 8MB RAM. It’s real easy to setup and use. I used Coyote for about a year until I started taking many peoples unwanted machines and parts, lots of AMD K-6’s, Intel P2’s and P3’s.

At that point I decided start looking elsewhere for a better distro. I picked up Smoothwall 2.0 Exp and have been running it for about 3 years now. My smoothwall has a Celeron 466MHz and 256MB and I thought that was overkill. It has done it’s job and kept out most of the baddies and shared my humble network.

I have also since brought up a Linksys WRWT54GS v4 and reflashed it with DD-WRT v23 which sits in front of my smoothwall. DD-WRT has more features than Smoothwall!

The real fun I have is with the other boxes I dink around with. I have used lots of various configs to set up NAS. I have several running at the moment. My pride is a box I paid $100 for; 2.8GHz P4, 1GB RAM, D-Link GbE NIC, and a ton HD storage in JBOD and running NASLite-2 USB (http://www.serverelements.com/naslite-2-usb.php). The hard drives and softwarewere not part of the $100. Yes, I paid for NASLite; it was cheap and really easy to set up. It’s blazing fast, it smashes “bring your on disk” “off the shelf” NAS devices costing 20-40x as much as that PC did. I get sick numbers even off single disk reads and writes (30-50MB/s). Even my NAS with a P2 450MHz, 384MB RAM and a 100Mb NIC reads/writes at 100Mb network threshold around 11.5MB/s. Even a really old POS 486 can be a Linux NAS, play around!!!

I say use old computers!!!
44. Jammywanks | September 26th, 2006 @ 2:31 PM | --1

You are all a bunch of noobs. Do not even try to argue.
45. peter | September 26th, 2006 @ 2:55 PM | +1

You’re last name says it all. Wanker. :oP
46. Jammywanks | September 26th, 2006 @ 4:07 PM | --1

HEHEHE HAR HAR HAR you got a point! I AM A WANKER AND I PWN ALL NOOBS.
47. Jammywanks | September 26th, 2006 @ 4:08 PM | +0

OK OK maybe you need a fast IPCOP box because when you generate certificates with IPSec VPN’s, it does take quite some some time, I can’t imagine someone trying to do VPN’s with an old 486 w/ 16MB RAM.
48. Bill Ward | September 26th, 2006 @ 11:19 PM | +0

Rub3x: I (and I’d bet a bunch of others) got the link from a blurb at [H]ardOCP on the 6th. Sorry it took so long to get back to you, I only got the first notice of a message today.
49. wily | September 27th, 2006 @ 8:24 PM | +0

Think this is overkill? It’s all relative.

Our setup is an IBM xSeries 342 rack-mount server, running Gentoo. It only runs 5 or 6 machines, but I don’t like my servers going down. ;-)

Dual P3 1.13GHz
1.5GB RAM
3x 36GB 10,00rpm HDD, running in RAID 5e (hot-swapable)
Dual-redundant PSUs (hot-swapable)
On-board Intel 85xx NIC 100mbit for WAN
Realtek 1Gbit NIC for LAN

With this kind of power (An XP 3200, for example) you should have included instructions for more hard-core routing, such as some of the nifty new features of IPTables, QoS, etc.

But Gentoo is really the only choice for us geeks who need total control and speed… m0n0wall etc. are nice, but just not the same.
50. robert | September 29th, 2006 @ 10:18 PM | +1

Hi,

I’m using a P2 233mhz with 256MB ram, it is monitoring traffic in realtime, and 180~ machines connect trough it to the internet.

load avarage 0.38
51. Jammywanks | September 30th, 2006 @ 2:40 AM | --1

That sounds about right. I just upgraded my IPCOP box. The 20 gig harddrive was replaced with a compact flash to IDE adapter using a 1 gig compact flash card. I also upped the SDRAM from 256 to 512MB . Its way quieter without the HD… compact flash drives are good stuff.
52. Ken | October 18th, 2006 @ 7:40 PM | +0

Most of you are missing the point. The machine he used is overkill, but likely just the test bed for the project. There are other options that exist, but this is a project on how to do it this way. Additionally, a stage 3 based Gentoo doesn’t require compilation and will run on old machines with minimal setup time.
53. theo | October 28th, 2006 @ 12:16 AM | +0

You like Clark Connect?

Then try smeserver.org/.

I have been using it for for several years and no problems. Upgrades just work also.
54. no. 22 | November 7th, 2006 @ 5:00 AM | +0

so, in my p3 666Mhz and bunch of ram, what do you recommend(free of charge) to routing between six network adapers. wanna manage three ISP and small network, bandwitch priority management ?
55. urpwnd | November 7th, 2006 @ 8:43 PM | +0

@55

m0n0wall.

http://www.m0n0.ch
56. BRI EDWARDS | November 7th, 2006 @ 10:11 PM | --2

hi there
i wondered wether u could help i found an old TIME PC and checked it out hard drive is intact but5 all the RAM REMOVED ok i thought replace the RAM could u recommend the RAM needed the only details I have on the PC is TIME @the front of the TOWER and at the back is the numbers 366M02GB2B SERIAL NO- 000108150/01C i hope togive this to a young mother just starting on computers I hope u can advise or help in anyway many thanks
BRI EDWARDS
57. MonkeyBoy | November 7th, 2006 @ 10:30 PM | +0

PC100 Try 128MB modules. I have a hole bunch of them.
58. sip | December 7th, 2006 @ 1:50 AM | --1

I am looking for a pc-based router software solution that has QoS. Any Ideas. I have a ton of VoiP trafic so looking for a powerhouse solution. Free obvously. Thanks
59. urpwnd | December 7th, 2006 @ 7:10 PM | +0

@59

again, m0n0wall

http://www.m0n0.ch
60. pbrain | January 1st, 2007 @ 9:33 AM | +3

I made a router from a broken lightbulb, 2 pieces of frayed bootlace (leather boots) and a pinhole camera.. I installed slackware onit and it worked perectly until Bush signed the Patriot Act.
61. Guilderw | January 12th, 2007 @ 4:13 AM | +0

This id the first time that I hear that you can used a PC as a router, can some one post some URL where I can get some useful info

Old PC To New Router With Gentoo Linux

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