Hardware Firewall
 

Here's what I got and what I need. An old Packard hell that was given to me. 233MHz Cyrix, 96 megs of ram, simple vga card, sound card and network card and 10 gig harddrive. I want to set it up as a firewall. I run Zonealarm and use a linksys cable modem router on a cable modem. I have the whole house ran with ethernet cat 5e, and 4 computers counting the Packard Hell. I want to put it between the cable modem and the router to act as a firewall and to monitor traffic. I leave at least one computer on at all times, usually two and want to secure things beyond Zonealarm. I want something free, easy, and fairly secure. I already have one level of security with zonealarm but I want some thing seperate to add to the security. I know I'll need another nic to set this up so that isn't an issue. I can install Linux but that's about it, I don't know much more. Also for a third level of security what ports can I easily block without hindering my network on the router. There is a lot of option on my router and I just want to know what else I can do to make things even better. Also will having this computer in the mix slow things down much. I can normally sustain a 200 K/s download what can I expect If i throw the computer inbetween the router and the modem?

I would say linux in some fashon would be the best bet. You can log just about anything, and its pretty light as far as the hardware it needs. In theroy if its hooked up and configed right i dont think it would slow your network but thats merely mho. Linux has all sorts of goodies for doing exactily what you are talking about
NAT
IPTABLES
TRIPWIRE
PORTSENTRY
TIGER
ETHEREAL
as well as many other goodies ...
hope this helps

My recommendation is to use one of the many pre-made Linux router/firewall distro's out there. My personal favorite is IPCop. Others to consider are SmoothWall and ClarkConnect.

I would suggest using this as your firewall and router, and not using your Linksys device as a router any more (you'll probably still need to use the switch function of it, or buy another switch). I've never found a store-bought router that's been anywhere near as stable as my linux router box. These packages are pre-configured for what you need to do, and the instalation guides you through it, so you don't have to be a linux guru to set it up.

IM, PM, or email me, if you want specific guidance on selecting one of these, or setting up/configuring IPCop, or my experiences with IPCop.

As far as stablity of the router I haven't had a failure attributed to it since I hooked it up in the beginning of the year, it's been solid. However I never messed with it enough to manually assign all of my Ip addresses. I still have everthing on DHCP. I have an 8 port switch as well. So if I understand I could assign my IP addresses, set up the "Linux Router" machine, run it into the switch and take the router out all together. I'm horrible at linux so if it is that easy that will be great. I can install it but that's about it. And the computer is old enough drivers don't really seem to be an issue. Other than the second nic for the router is there anything else you think I'll need. What kind of customization have you done? Do you block many ports of do you find it does the job itself good enough? I think I'm going to keep zonealarm as a secondary as well, have you ever seen that be a problem. I'm not security paranoid yet, but I do what to keep my stuff as my stuff.

I hear FreeBSD would be better then linux for a firewall

no, thats openbsd :)

www.openbsd.org

security is the goal for openbsd. FreeBSD is built for mainstream type desktop use. NetBSD is for supporting almost any platform.

www.freebsd.org
www.netbsd.org <- look at all the processors supported on the right column.