any one know how i may turn a computer into a router
 

In my ventures with computers and my getting into the unix type operating systems i came to realize that routers and switching cores are simply computers programed in a certin way and well that got me thinking why cant i do that with one of the many computers that are currently behind me in my closet and making
a sea of compenonts on my floor.

i did some searching (aka i googled it) and i came up with little results

now i know that this is aplicable i would just really appreciate it if some one would be kind as to point out a simple way of doing it or some software or coding that could help me.
(i already broke one of my 10 based with coax nic cards and im not really up for trashing much more)
any input would be great

demon - try this. http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/h...424529,00.html

its from techtv, aimed at people who haven't done this before. But it should give you a good idea where to start, or just how to do the entire thing

sweet thanx a bunch

Check out bbiagent.net. It's what I use. It rocks. I've also built linux routers at work from scratch, with packet shaping, god that rocks. You can upload stuff without reducing download speed or response time, and vice-versa. Download Anime while playing FPSs, with NO LAG!

http://leaf.sourceforge.net/

Check out the Bering and Dachstein releases. I believe this collection is the continuation of The Linux Router Project originally at linuxrouter.com

edit: actually that's linuxrouter.org, not .com

Has anyone tried <a href="http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3#security" target="_blank">Mandrakes Multi-Network Firewall</a>? I want to try it when I get some free time.

Click "I'm already a member of the Club or plan on registering soon, please send me to the download page"

check out <a href="http://www.freesco.org" target="_blank" >FreeSco.org </a> I haven't used it but I've heard good things.

Freesco .org is a great router. It can be installed on the hard drive or run in memory of the floppy . Very easy to set too. I'm running mine right now .

www.smoothwall.org

great program, 20 mb ISO, does DHCP, firewall, router, and some other shit i havent discovered.

I've played with it some. The released I messed with was buggy as hell. I think my mistake was skipping the network interface configuration until after I had the initial install completed.

I set it up on my internal network, and wanted to change one of the interfaces to an external IP later. When I tried to do that, it refused to bring the interface up, even after deleting and recreating it.

The web interface is slick though. I imagine that this was probably fixed in a later rev.

Go do some searches for Smoothwall on groups.google.com, and you'll find that the guy who runs the project is a dickhead *. Because of this, the GPL version was branched off by some other guys into a product called IPCop. IPCop is a little behind the curve compared to Smoothwall, but you're more likely to get friendly assistance via IRC and USENET.

Also, you might give http://www.linuxrouter.org/ a look. I don't know if it has been updated in awhile, but it used to be pretty good.

Lastly, you might just throw your favorite Linux distro on a machine and start learning iptables.

thank you for all the useful links
im now gonna have a feild day one of these days making my own router... lol

Its also fairly easy to convert a standard Linux distro into a decent router (if you know a little about inetd etc).

Mine is based off Debian Stable, has an internal ADSL card, 2 ethernet cards and provides firewalled internet support for 4 machines. Longest its stayed up for is 4 months (and that was my choice to shut it down).

Just added a web, mysql and ftp server for some stuff I'm playing with. SSH provides you all access for maintence, log checks etc

Linux/BSD Router flexibility makes them so much better than the brought router for the serious geek.

yea your definitly right
im currently using a linksys and the piece of shit over heats like you would not believe even if its in a cold open area with a fan on it
plus wuts the fun of doing this in the conventional way

as for now im working on using software but as some one recomended im going to learn iptables this summer and build my own on one of the many p2 comps i will soon be getting

thank you all for all your input

hey i know demon asked for it, but thanks a bunch too :) this is gonna be SUPER useful to me