Dual NIC Linux Box VS. "Cable/DSL gateways"

[slacker_x]

Someone please explain the advantages and disadvantages of using a dual-nic linux box instead of a little box from linksys for my firewall protection, NAT, etc.

Are there things that the linux box can do that the linksys can't?

[FoBoT]

the way i see it, there are three reasons:

$$ - if you already have an old box that will run a linux/*BSD firewall, then it costs you zero $, those hardware boxes cost some $$

security - with a hardware box you get what you get, ie whatever the security setup is is what you get, although i am sure they put out updates periodically. i would love to compare a vulnerability report from www.vulnerabilities.org (http://www.vulnerabilities.org) for one of those linksys/hardware router boxes to some good linux/*bsd boxen

learning - if you learn anything by plugging in the rj-45 to a hardware router/linksys box, LMK ;)
you can learn tons about security/OS by setting up your own router/firewall

have a nice day! :)

[Craig McPherson]

Those little router boxes are nice, but you really don't know WHAT you're getting. You have no idea what OS they're running (could be Linux, for all you know), how their firewalling works (beyond the blurb in the manual), how tight their networking code is, etc. etc. etc.

A Linux box is a lot more work to maintain, and a lot more complex, but it's infinitely configurable, and upgradable. Is your little blue router box going to support ECN? IPV6? Can you do advanced port forwarding, packet mangling, QoS, logging, etc etc etc?

[slacker_x]

if you are going to do all sorts of filtering and forwarding etc.

What are the hardware requirements going to be like?

Latency is bad :p

[FoBoT]

you won't get added latency with a pc unless you try to use a 386 or run some really freaky stuff, a fast 486/slow pentium will NOT add latency to your setup, if it is only doing routing/firewall stuff, especially if you are talking dsl/cable , the bandwidth will still be the limiter