Setting up Dial-up Server

[paj12]

Hey, everybody! Sorry if this post is a little long, but I want to get the necessary information in.

I've built a new comp (new to me, a least) out of some spare parts. It looks like this:

AMD-K6 200 MHz
32 MB of RAM
5 GB Hard Drive
2x CD-ROM and Floppy
10/100 NIC and 56k modem

Right now, in my house, we have my Dad's Windows 2000 box running Internet Connection Sharing and ZoneAlarm serving as a router and firewall for our dial-up connection. Something is always getting junked up on this setup and I have to fix it. Then my Dad yells at me for screwing with his computer.

Anyways, I want to offload the router and firewall functions onto the above-mentioned computer running Slackware 10. I have a couple of questions, though.

1. How can I bring the connection up remotely from a Windows box. If my Mom and Dad have to come in to my room, bring up the server, and type "ifconfig ppp0 up" then the whole thing is blown.

2. Firewall. I've never set one of these up in Linux before. I know you're supposed to use iptables but I'm not sure where to begin.

3. Software. I haven't done the Slackware install yet, so I'm wondering what packages I need to make everything work.

Thanks in advance. :)

[Darkbolt]

Originally posted by paj12
Hey, everybody! Sorry if this post is a little long, but I want to get the necessary information in.

I've built a new comp (new to me, a least) out of some spare parts. It looks like this:

AMD-K6 200 MHz
32 MB of RAM
5 GB Hard Drive
2x CD-ROM and Floppy
10/100 NIC and 56k modem

Right now, in my house, we have my Dad's Windows 2000 box running Internet Connection Sharing and ZoneAlarm serving as a router and firewall for our dial-up connection. Something is always getting junked up on this setup and I have to fix it. Then my Dad yells at me for screwing with his computer.

Anyways, I want to offload the router and firewall functions onto the above-mentioned computer running Slackware 10. I have a couple of questions, though.

1. How can I bring the connection up remotely from a Windows box. If my Mom and Dad have to come in to my room, bring up the server, and type "ifconfig ppp0 up" then the whole thing is blown.

2. Firewall. I've never set one of these up in Linux before. I know you're supposed to use iptables but I'm not sure where to begin.

3. Software. I haven't done the Slackware install yet, so I'm wondering what packages I need to make everything work.

Thanks in advance. :)
1)slackware has a dial up configurator, called pppsetup, after you use that to set up your ppp connection, all you have to do is ssh into the box (putty is the only known windows ssh client to me), and use the command 'ppp-up'

2)go to tldp.org, and read their IP-Masquerading howto, it comes with a very basic firewall script that you can use for internet connection sharing.

3)if this box is just going to be a router, this sounds wasteful, but you can just install everything you need on that size hard drive., or you can install the major groups you'll need, A,AP,D,L,N,and maybe X, and XAP.

[paj12]

Thanks for the response, Darkbolt.

1. Thanks for the tip about the dialup configurator. I guess I've been spoiled by YaST and I'm not familiar with other ways of configuring stuff. :D

As for the ssh tip: Is there a way to automate this? What I'm looking for is an "idiot button" I can put on my parents' desktop to bring the connection up and down by just clicking.

2. Looks interesting. I'll have to check it out. The more I research about iptables, the more excited I get. It looks like you can have total control over your connection. I'll definitely have to look some more into this.

3. Sounds like a plan. Once I get a clue about what the hell I'm doing, I can always save my config files and reinstall with only what i need.

I'll be sure and post back how it went, after I get a replacement for the crapped-out memory. Damn thing won't boot. :mad:

[Darkbolt]

for 2:
If you install kde, then it comes with an app called 'kppp', which looks remarkably similar to the dialup controls in windows.

[paj12]

Here's my status update so far:

It appears I won't have 5GB to play around with like I thought. My Dad wants the drive back. But he did manage to rescue a Quantum Fireball 2GB off the junk heap at work. There's nothing wrong with it; it's just too small for Windows XP. :rolleyes:

I replaced the two 16MB sticks of RAM with a single 32MB stick of PC100. Geez, my dad has a lot of RAM lying around!

I did the Slackware install. I just installed the packages that I thought I would need (I can always install more later). The install ended up taking up about 225MB. Not bad for my first try. :p

I still need to get the Internet connection working, but I'm hopeful I can get everything running. Everything seems to be going pretty good so far. :)

Darkbolt:
Thanks for the suggestion, but KDE is out of the question on this box. I think I'll try your earlier suggestion and go with PuTTY on the Windows clients and run ppp-on remotely.

[paj12]

One down. Ten million to go. I'm writing this post from my new almost-router in Links. JL looks a lot different in text mode. :) Still needs some tweaking, though. Average speed is around 700 Bytes/second!

Next on my list is to get dchpd up and running so I can officially call this thing a server.