[CentOS] CentOS 4.5 and CentOS 5.0 News

[William L. Maltby]

On Fri, 2006-12-29 at 10:37 -0500, fredex wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 01:41:54PM +0000, Josh Donovan wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I use CentOS as a firewall/proxy/webserver/fileserver
> > in my small network.<snip> ...
> > 20 GB, pentium II with only 128 MB RAM.
> > 
> > <snip>

> Not directly answering your question, but...
> 
> You may wish to investigate one of the small standalone firewall
> distributions such as Smoothwall, IPCop, or m0n0wall (bsd-based).
> They will all easily run in 128mb, and are easy to configure.
> They are all easy to install. 
> 
> M0n0wall looks intriguing, I may give it a try here someday,... it runs
> from non-writable media such as a CD and saves config on a floppy. It
> can be run from a hard drive or a flash memory card of some sort too.
> The obvious advantage is that if someone cracks the machine they can't
> do any damage (to it, directly) because it's not writable.
> 
> And you really shouldn't be running web- or file-servers on your firewall,
> the more stuff running on it the more opportunities you present for an
> evil person/entity to crack it.
> 
> I'd suggest using one of the above then put another machine in a DMZ
> to do web server duty (if it is supposed to be externally visible--
> otherwise put it on another machine INSIDE the firewall on the "green"
> (allegedly safe) network).
> 
> I'm running Smoothwall Express 2.0 on my old K6-2/500 machine with
> 128MB of memory and a 3 or 4 gig drive. It just runs and runs and runs
> and doesn't come anywhere near using up all the memory. Before that
> box became available I ran it on things similar to P90 or AMD K5, both
> around 90-100 Mhz for several years with 64MB of ram and it ran just
> fine on those machines too.

I second all Fred said. I have a 200MHz Pentium w/96MB running IPCop
(1.11 now) and it just hums (eliminating fans would eliminate the "hums"
too!  :)

But, I have also installed it (for test/backup) on my wife's discarded
Aptiva w/ a real 486 and very little memory (I don't recall how much,
whatever came from the factory... 32MB, 64MB, 128MB?).

Also on an AMD 486 clone (x586?) 100MHz with 36MB of memory.

Only differences observed seem related to half/full duplex nature of the
NICs and raw speed. With my cable being in the "boonies" and a stock
Toshiba cable model, good sites get me 600-700 kChars/sec on the
Pentium, appx. 530K/sec on the AMD and 460K/sec on the Aptiva.

With that in hand, Aleksandr's staple, $20 machinces, should fit in your
scenario very nicely. Like him, I have a bunch  of those (even some $10
ones - 386SX comes to mind). Find justification for their continued
existence seems to be my biggest problem! :P

> 
> Fred
> <snip sig stuff>

HTH
--
Bill