Jonesy's Thoughts on Home Networks -
The other day I was rebuilding my home Linux server to Debian Sarge, and I was thinking "This is such overkill for a home network". I have a server which runs samba for filesharing with windows clients, a DHCP server with dynamic DNS, a DNS server, it's an openVPN concentrator for when I'm away from home or wireless, and I have MRTG set up on it, monitoring all three NICs on the server and 3 Wireless APs, so I can see pretty graphs of what's happening on the network. I used to run mail and a webserver on this box as well until I got a machine co-located in the city.
The same box is my Internet gateway, with traffic shaping on my ADSL connection, and a transparent squid proxy, clearly overkill for a handfull of client machines.
I have several geek friends who have full-blown networks running 2003 server, and exchange, or like myself, some sort of linux set up, for only a few client machines. In fact one of my mates has an intranet set up for him and his neighbours.
It seems that the fact that we can set up these home networks means that we will, and even though I could probably get by with an ADSL modem/router and an external usb disk, I prefer to set it all up myself. It means I can play with new technologies, and learn about them, before using them at work or in other applications, as well as giving me a great deal of control over my home network.
Post a comment, and let me know about your home setup.
-Jonesy
The other day I was rebuilding my home Linux server to Debian Sarge, and I was thinking "This is such overkill for a home network". I have a server which runs samba for filesharing with windows clients, a DHCP server with dynamic DNS, a DNS server, it's an openVPN concentrator for when I'm away from home or wireless, and I have MRTG set up on it, monitoring all three NICs on the server and 3 Wireless APs, so I can see pretty graphs of what's happening on the network. I used to run mail and a webserver on this box as well until I got a machine co-located in the city.
The same box is my Internet gateway, with traffic shaping on my ADSL connection, and a transparent squid proxy, clearly overkill for a handfull of client machines.
I have several geek friends who have full-blown networks running 2003 server, and exchange, or like myself, some sort of linux set up, for only a few client machines. In fact one of my mates has an intranet set up for him and his neighbours.
It seems that the fact that we can set up these home networks means that we will, and even though I could probably get by with an ADSL modem/router and an external usb disk, I prefer to set it all up myself. It means I can play with new technologies, and learn about them, before using them at work or in other applications, as well as giving me a great deal of control over my home network.
Post a comment, and let me know about your home setup.
-Jonesy