cpu to run usb adsl modem on dedicated firewall

What horsepower of cpu do I need to run an alcatel usb modem on a
_dedicated_ firewall (eg running smoothwall or ipcop, or their windows
equivalents)?

(I was hoping to get away with a K5-75 from the scrap-box so I didn't
need a fan, but saw a post recently implying these usb devices were
similar to win modems in terms of cpu overhead...)
Bob


--
robert w hall

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:20:23 +0100, robert w hall
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>What horsepower of cpu do I need to run an alcatel usb modem on a
>_dedicated_ firewall (eg running smoothwall or ipcop, or their windows
>equivalents)?
>
>(I was hoping to get away with a K5-75 from the scrap-box so I didn't
>need a fan, but saw a post recently implying these usb devices were
>similar to win modems in terms of cpu overhead...)
>Bob

That CPU should be ok as long as you use Smoothwall or IPCop, trying
to run the modem+firewall+Windows would be rather optimistic.

Andrew.

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:25:12 +0100, aep@nospam writeme.com wrote:

>
>That CPU should be ok as long as you use Smoothwall or IPCop, trying
>to run the modem+firewall+Windows would be rather optimistic.
>

I know someone who had no problems running win2k + winroute with a usb dsl
connection on a 32 meg p100. Not the quickest thing to boot. But once up,
did the job fine.


greg


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On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 09:36:57 +0100, Greg Hennessy <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>>That CPU should be ok as long as you use Smoothwall or IPCop, trying
>>to run the modem+firewall+Windows would be rather optimistic.
>>
>I know someone who had no problems running win2k + winroute with a usb dsl
>connection on a 32 meg p100. Not the quickest thing to boot. But once up,
>did the job fine.
>
Yeah, but a P100 is about twice the processing power of a K5 75.

Andrew.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 09:46:11 +0100, aep@nospam writeme.com wrote:


>>I know someone who had no problems running win2k + winroute with a usb dsl
>>connection on a 32 meg p100. Not the quickest thing to boot. But once up,
>>did the job fine.
>>
>Yeah, but a P100 is about twice the processing power of a K5 75.
>

For packet filtering a 512k pipe one doesnt need much in way of processing
power.


greg


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On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 11:03:52 +0100, Greg Hennessy <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>For packet filtering a 512k pipe one doesnt need much in way of processing
>power.
>
When talking about ethernet, no of course not, but the OP is going to
use a USB modem which does.

Andrew.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 11:26:25 +0100, aep@nospam writeme.com wrote:


>When talking about ethernet, no of course not, but the OP is going to
>use a USB modem which does.

For a dedicated system doing nothing else, it'll make very little
difference IMHO. It also depends on the USB chipset and their drivers.
Which on a K5 would most likely be a PCI card rather than motherboard
mounted.

Interactive desktop use on such a system would be painful. but running
headless as a router thats not going to matter.


greg
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On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 14:13:08 +0100, robert w hall
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


>>Interactive desktop use on such a system would be painful. but running
>>headless as a router thats not going to matter.
>
>thanks - that's clear and sounds not unhopeful

I know someone who quite happily ran winroute on a 32 meg 486/66 under NT
4.0. Again, it took a while to boot. But once up and running it did the job
fine.

> - I've a choice of a PCI-
>usb card or the existing MoBo chipset (which would be a fairly early
>implementation I think)

Win2k will most likely have drivers for it anyway. If its an intel chipset,
their implementation of USB has always been reasonable.


I've always recommended to stick with the devil you know host wise for
firewalls. If you are comfortable hardening up win2k and running winroute,
then use it. On a side note I'd recommend using anything but the built in
internet connection sharing, its not that good.


CPU wise when it comes to firewalling, I am running a P2-350 SFF compaq
deskpro I got at a fair for a tenner. It is *quiet* and cpu usage barely
scrapes 10% average utilisation running transparent caches and all sorts of
monitoring / intrusion detection.

For basic packet filtering a k5 75 will do fine even doing PPPoA
encapsulation for USB.


greg


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In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, Greg Hennessy
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
snip
-
>I've always recommended to stick with the devil you know host wise for
>firewalls. If you are comfortable hardening up win2k and running winroute,
>then use it. On a side note I'd recommend using anything but the built in
>internet connection sharing, its not that good.

I'm a linux-box (plus a little win4lin) man myself for preference - got
both ipcop and smoothwall set up on an old P54/55 box - but with nothing
definitive to try it on on the 'red side' other than 56k dialup yet, I
suddenly got cold feet...

Thanks again
Bob
--
robert w hall

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 23:41:52 +0100, robert w hall
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:


>I'm a linux-box (plus a little win4lin) man myself for preference - got
>both ipcop and smoothwall set up on an old P54/55 box

That should do the job just nicely. Prefer IPCop though TBH.

> - but with nothing
>definitive to try it on on the 'red side' other than 56k dialup yet, I
>suddenly got cold feet...

:-). You'll have no worries on that score. Once you have broadband,
going back to 56k is worse than having teeth pulled. You wont have any
problems.

If are worried about USB overhead, replacing the USB frog with a dedicated
ethernet router will cost 50-60 notes. Just make sure the router supports
PPP half bridge mode, to allow you to host the public IP on the untrusted
interface of your firewall.


greg



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