[Ham-Computers] Setting up home network

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Frank, 	
	
Based on what I am told, Windows 98SE is more like a new OS Windows 99. It is
vastly different than Windows 98! MS did not call it Win 99, as all the focus
was being put on Windows 2000 and to put something between Win 98 and Win 2K
would have been bad marketing.	
	
hence, Windows 98SE is one of the most secure OS that MS has released, so it is
said.  	
   

----------
From: frank <fkamp at comcast.net>
To: Computers (or other) used for amateur radio, communications,  or  
experimenting <ham-computers at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: Re: [Ham-Computers] Setting up home network
Date: Friday, September 16, 2005 10:02 AM

"Duane Fischer, W8DBF" wrote:
> 
> The 200 MHZ is not a Pentium 2 Phil, it is just a Pentium. The two started
> where, 333 or 400 MHZ?
> 
> When did you add a hardware router? is that RS one?
> 
> I've got $20 wagered that Phil crashes and burns and has to reformat!

Maybe, maybe not. Anytime you connect a computer to broadband service
and depend on a simple software firewall, you risk polution.  Especially
whan the computer runs something like XP.

I have been running a small LAN connected to a cable modem for over five
years without incident.  I have five computers running off the LAN.  All
these computers run Win98SE or some version of Linux.  They all have
software firewalls.  I started with Zone alarm and am now using TPF
(Tiny Personal Firewall) on all the windows machines.  

In addition, I also have a 486-33 machine running Dachstine Linux
firewall/router. The cable modem connects to eth0 via cat5 to the Linux
box. A second NIC in that box (eth1) connects to the LAN with coax
(RG-58 and BNC connectors).  No need for a hub and the thinnet, 10baseT
cabling is fully shielded keeping ethernet hash inside the cable and ham
radio interference out.

10baseT is also very inexpensive.  I have under $100 invested in NIC
cards and cable.  Yes, it is only 10mhz but that is still nearly ten
times faster than the cable modem and only has to support five
computers.

The Linux firewall/router uses ipchains and boots off a write protected
floppy.  Runs out of ramdisk after booting.  Reboot and you have a clean
system.  Only takes 16meg of ram.  10baseT is a simple, daisy chain,
networking approach.  The only critical thing about it is the 50
termination on the far end of the cable.

Recently I have added a hub, mainly to support the cat5 connection to
the on board ethernet connection on a sixth computer running a GA-7VAXP
motherboard.  I have also added a linksys wireless router to the hub so
that my son-in-law can connect to the internet with his wireless Apple
laptop when he visits.

Now if I had two computers, one running win98, the other running XP, I
would connect them to a cable modem thusly.  I would add another NIC to
the win98 machine and enable the win98 connection sharing feature.  The
second machine, XP, would connect via a cross-connected cat5 cable. 
Both machines would run tiny personal firewall.  That way you have a two
computer LAN for the cost of one NIC and a couple of cables.

There are other ways of doing this but either way, I would take the
following precautions.  Install the tiny personal firewall to reject
everything initially.  Then open ports as needed.  Also, run an Adaware
program on each computer before connecting to the ISP.  Isolate or
remove anything the adaware program finds.  Mske sure that the windows
machines only use TCP.  Disable any Netbui or other protocols.

Regards,
Frank Kamp
K5DKZ


Over the years I have used both commercial and free virus scaning
software.  I have never had any of it find a virus, but all of it slows
down the computer when it runs in real time.  Now I dont bother and rely
on the firewalls and email filters.
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