Have an Old PC? Turn it into a Router/Firewall

A friend of mine recently gave ma an old Sony Vaio desktop he had sitting in a corner. It had Windows ME and 64MB RAM (it would have had 128 but one stick was corrupt) and a little over 1 GB for the HD.

I like to download copyrighted material like everyone else; it's not legal but we all do it, kind of like rolling through a stop light when turning right, it's expected. Having a router "in house" does two things. It will hide your computers that you use on the web (your IP for your PC will be invisible) and it also give you a heightened level of security by putting a gate between your PC(s) and the 'Net.

This article isn't going to give you the down and dirty to do it. There are too many technical things for me to describe here. I want to however give you the links I have found helpful so you can try it on your own.

If you have an old PC you aren't using and it's too slow or has low memory, that's OK. A router/server/firewall machine doesn't need all the bells and whistles of a full fledged PC that you use daily. It is only moving packets of information around. You don't even need a monitor or keyboard hooked up to it once you have it in place (except of course to maintain it occasionally).

You can have as little as 60 MB RAM and less than 4-6GB on the HD.

Here are the links to get you started:

Using OpenBSD As A Firewall/Gateway for Home DSL or Cable

Set Up a Linux Firewall on Your Network | Webmonkey | Wired.com 

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/networking/how-to-build-your-own-router-915419

http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn-an-old-Computer-into-a-web-server/

Downloads | Coyote Linux 

Realize that this is not for you if you are not confortable with command line entries and fooling around "under the hood" of a PC, but if it's an old PC, why care? It's for the learning as well as the security!

Have fun!