I already have my firewall system built, but I changed my mind and will turn
it into my FreeBSD box.  I have my old P-60 for my firewall and it was my
old Linux box.  I've already downloaded several firewall disk Distros such
as, fireplug, LRP, FreeSCO (free Cisco) and plan to try them all.

When it was working, before I hosed it, it seemed slow to retrieve pages,
like it was checking a proxy (caching) server for a copy.  It was fast as
blazes downloading a song from WinAmp tho.  I snaged the latest StarOffice
in 17 minutes, that's 76MB!

Thanks for the info.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff McCright [mailto:jeff.mccright@southernunionco.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 3:03 PM
To: Brian Kelsay
Subject: RE: Cable Modem Setup - Can't seem to get a connection

When I had my Comcast cablemodem service installed, I asked them to
NOT use their software. They set it up as a live network
connection(LAN).
If you want to set it up so it runs properly under Win98;

In the Network Properties on the identification tab, the
computer name is your CJ Number, ie.   CJ123456-A, and your
Workgroup should be setup as @home. The description has no effect.

In the TCP/IP settings for your network adapter,
under:

 IP Address tab, you want to Obtain IP automatically

WINS Configuration tab, you want to Use DHCP for WINS Resolution

All other settings should be set to default.

This will set up Win98.

Reboot the system to allow the settings to take effect, then run winipcfg
from the
run option under Start button. select your nic from the adapter list.Click
RELEASE ALL, then click RENEW ALL.

You will definately want a firewall, such as BlackIce, etc...

For Linux, I recommend using a dedicated firewall/proxy/DHCP sever called
FirePlug Edge. Uses very little as far as hardware and it provides DHCP,
Proxy, and firewall services. 486DX processor, 8 Meg RAM, 2 NICS, 512K VGA
Display, and a 1.44 Floppy Drive. The firewall boots off of a write
protected
Floppy, creates a 4 MB RAM drive, untars the Servers to the RAM Drive and
then runs from the Ram Drive. All configuration settings are made to text
files
on the diskette and then write protected for complete security. I have been
using
this for a couple months. It works great and is designed Specifically for
COMCAST. It uses Thin Linux, a stripped down version of Debian.

For more info, point your browser to:

http://edge.fireplug.net/

Wow, did I say all that???

Thanks,

Jeff McCright

 ----------
From: Brian Kelsay
To: 'kclug@kclug.org'
Cc: jeff.mccright@southernunionco.com
Subject: RE: Cable Modem Setup - Can't seem to get a connection

Did you get this working?  I am now in the same boat.  I got Comcast cable
yesterday.  I had them install it to the one machine I had running after
moving a few weeks ago (I'm still trying to find all the cables to my other
computers in some box somewhere).  This one PC is a Windows 98 PC.  Yuk.  So
of course the first thing I did after surfing a bit was to look at the
network settings.  Weird is all I can describe it as.  It looked like it was
set up for an ISDN line with a VPN.  Huh?  They had a NDISWAN protocol
loaded and a VPN Adapter and an entry for TCP/IP bound to VPN and the NDIS.
It also looked like it was set up to broadcast all the time.  I tried
putting in the static IP on the form and turning off DHCP, that didn't work.
So I switched it back.  It worked.  I tried to set it like I do at work for
DHCP and it deleted the VPN and NDISWAN.  Hosed....  Then I looked for the
reinstall disk and it appears they didn't give me one.  Hmmm.  Tech support.

Any ideas how I'll get DHCP on one of the NICs in my firewall once I find
the cords?  I'll look for howtos on cable and Linux for now.