I have a home network which is mixed for Home & Small Business. I have the following items connected: Custom PC - Supplied by work (my FT job for use work related & personal) Dell Poweredge 2300 Server - Main webserver for my business (Trabant Webshop and site) Currently set to host 1x main site , but this may increase upto 5-10 small sites if i host for friends/family etc. Dell Optiplex GX50 - (to be purchased but would be a SFF model for Trabi-UK use only) Small enough to be taken to other places as and when required (if doing a tade show for invoices & simlar - odd choice i know!) Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 Laptop - connects wirelessly for personal use and occasional Trabi-UK use. Xbox & PS2 Yet to be connected along with a PSP. But would be run only one at a time max and the Xbox & PS2 would be wired to a wireless connection also. All these run through a WRT54G Linksys Wireless Router which in turn is connected to my Virgin/NTL Cable modem. My Main question is:- If i was to build a low budget small Hardware firewall (seems cheaper then a prebuilt one). Where exactly would i put it in the network to protect the Server primarily, but to also stop unwanted access to the rest of my network? Any thoughts/suggestions? Also, the Server (which was a bargain at £15!) will be living and the opposite corner of the house to the rest of the PC equipment due to space reasons. I would need to run a cable around the outside of the house to get to it, cant i just use regular decent quality CAT5 cabling or would i need to get some for of protection for it from the elements?
Your Linksys router should have a firewall built-in & will also offer NAT (netword address translation) which collectively should keep all but the most determined out of your LAN.
really? So i dont need to bother with a dedicated Firewall unit? excellent, one less item to worry about!!!
Probably not - I'd read up on the router documentation & make sure that the firewall options are on. There's a few websites that you can goto that'll run scans to see how stealthy your network looks to the outside world - here's one: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
If you really do want a hardware firewall (more customization, more reliable) you want a system with 2 network cards (1 on the mobo, 1 PCI?), with the modem's ethernet out going into one of the network ports, and then a cable from the second NIC to the WAN\input of the router. Install SmoothWall (http://www.smoothwall.org/) and you're set. Add more NICs and a wireless card that can run in Infrastructure mode (Realtek RA2500 I think) and you don't need a router at all. I hate routers. Especially mine.
I only got my router last week so i wont be ditching it just yet, but appreciate the advice. My main concern is that i dont want everone and their dog hacking into the server and screwing up my webshop and site etc. Its all being done on a low budget but i dont want to compromise on Security too much if you know what i mean. Lee
you probably would setup a DMZ so you have: Code: internet | Firewall / \ Servers Other computers this will require the computer acting as firewall to have 3 network connections. The good thing about seting it up like this is that you can have higher security on the firewall for the servers and if someone hacked in to the "other computers" they wouldn't have access to the servers. ..or something like that from what I understand, seting up networks is not what I'm best at
