[Coco] Completely OT Question?

John R. Hogerhuis jhoger at pobox.com
Thu Jul 14 05:06:28 EDT 2005


In a former life I helped to pioneer the small NAT router market
(Beadlenet, eventually purchased by Watchguard).

The way I would do it:

Take a linksys wireless router. They have a serial port, but no header.
So solder one on. Then connect that serial port to an external 56K
modem. Run the GPLed Linux on the unit, set up to autodial PPP out to
the ISP and log in whenever sends a packet to the net.

I do recall that there have been integrated devices like this. 3Com made
one. The problem is that the people that know they need an external
firewall, also know they want broadband.

Or maybe it would just be easier to buy a $50 Pentium II at Goodwill
Computer Store and throw Linux on that with an internal modem. I'm
partial to external USR modems myself though. There are several single
CD or floppy based Linux distros tuned to work as IP routers.

-- John.





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