At home I just migrated the linux server to new hardware. This has to be one of the easiest migrations I've ever done for that service. Now just the obsessive tweaking needs doing, all the major functions are moved.
That server is running Slackware. I'm not using SuSE at home for a couple of reasons:
I got my first wireless access point in November of 2000. Way back then, they hadn't quite figured out all the short-cuts to cracking WEP so it required a certain amount of traffic to analyze. This was a Linksys B AP, and a Linksys wireless card. Together they had el-crappo for range (to today's standards).
With that in mind I segregated my network.
Internet <- Cisco 675 DSL -> Wired network <- Linux server -> Wireless network
Didn't have cable in our area yet back then. The Cisco handled everything I needed. Unfortunately, it was badly behaved. It had the nasty habit of ARPing through the whole dhcp range, one addr per second, continually.
At that point in time I had one wireless device. The always-on windows server was on the wired network, and the linux server configured to proxy things. So the only traffic on the wireless network was from my laptop; no ARP ARP ARP ARP ARP and no windows browse packets. In other words, it was a network that was hard to crack. Oh yeah, baby.
Fast forward a couple years. I move out here, we get cable instead of DSL.
Another year or two, and the 802.11b AP died so we moved to a G AP.
Another year, and I added a certain linux-based media server (wireless for long reasons) and my wife got a PowerBook.
The 10MB ethernet card in the back of that Linux machine (a Pentium 2 450MHz machine) was really... concerning me. Comcast is still under 10MB, but... it's the principle of the thing. It was a bloody ISA card for pete's sake.
So today I flattened the network. It's structured the same, but rather than have separate subnets I'm just using brctl to bridge the two; I like being able to easily sniff my wireless traffic. We no longer have an always-on Windows box. And WPA-PSK is a heckova lot harder to crack than WPA ever was. So, I figure it's safe. Plus, if the linux machine ever dies I only have to move one cable to get things back online.
Now the internet seems faster when browsing on the laptops. I guess that 10MB card was actually slowing things down a bit.
That server is running Slackware. I'm not using SuSE at home for a couple of reasons:
- I've been using Slack since college
- Diversity is good when figuring out how to run Linux
- Slackware doesn't have anything approaching YaST.
- Getting a new service online with Slackware takes about five times longer than it does with SuSE, but at the end of it you know how it bloody well works.
- It's easier to crib from existing config files that way.
I got my first wireless access point in November of 2000. Way back then, they hadn't quite figured out all the short-cuts to cracking WEP so it required a certain amount of traffic to analyze. This was a Linksys B AP, and a Linksys wireless card. Together they had el-crappo for range (to today's standards).
With that in mind I segregated my network.
Internet <- Cisco 675 DSL -> Wired network <- Linux server -> Wireless network
Didn't have cable in our area yet back then. The Cisco handled everything I needed. Unfortunately, it was badly behaved. It had the nasty habit of ARPing through the whole dhcp range, one addr per second, continually.
At that point in time I had one wireless device. The always-on windows server was on the wired network, and the linux server configured to proxy things. So the only traffic on the wireless network was from my laptop; no ARP ARP ARP ARP ARP and no windows browse packets. In other words, it was a network that was hard to crack. Oh yeah, baby.
Fast forward a couple years. I move out here, we get cable instead of DSL.
Another year or two, and the 802.11b AP died so we moved to a G AP.
Another year, and I added a certain linux-based media server (wireless for long reasons) and my wife got a PowerBook.
The 10MB ethernet card in the back of that Linux machine (a Pentium 2 450MHz machine) was really... concerning me. Comcast is still under 10MB, but... it's the principle of the thing. It was a bloody ISA card for pete's sake.
So today I flattened the network. It's structured the same, but rather than have separate subnets I'm just using brctl to bridge the two; I like being able to easily sniff my wireless traffic. We no longer have an always-on Windows box. And WPA-PSK is a heckova lot harder to crack than WPA ever was. So, I figure it's safe. Plus, if the linux machine ever dies I only have to move one cable to get things back online.
Now the internet seems faster when browsing on the laptops. I guess that 10MB card was actually slowing things down a bit.