Building the Packet Server
By jimrob | February 8, 2007
Yesterday, I scrounged through some of the PC parts I acquired when a local factory shut down. I was surprised to see how “good” they were. The tower I used has a 400MHz processor with 256M of RAM, and the hard drive I threw in it is a 6GB. That should be more than enough to run a packet server. (I was expecting 90MHz processors and 64MB of RAM)
I had intended to do a minimal install, given the size of the drive. However, I inadvertently installed half of the XF86 files, so I figured I’d go ahead and finish that off. Then I figured since I had X installed, I may as well install a desktop manager. So, I don’t have as much space as I’d like, but there’s still plenty of room left. If it does get too full, which I doubt it will, I can thow another 6GB drive in and mount it to /home
Dave and I are thinking of using a combination of packet/ssh to allow remote logins to the computer. Then, remote users would have access to mutt, lynx, etc. I’m unaware of how well this would work. I do know this would be HORRIBLY slow, however.
I had intended to use soundcard TNC emulation, but the installer didn’t automatically configure the soundcard. I’ve had absolutly NO luck doing such on my own, so I’m wondering if I’ll have to break down and buy/build a TNC.
This computer will also be serving as an ethernet bridge. I attempted to get that setup this morning, but couldn’t quite figure it out. It seems simple enough - create a bridge, make eth0, eth1, and eth2 input devices, release the IP addys of the network cards, tell the bridge to get an IP, make the bridge the default gateway - but I can’t get it. Whenever I successfully get computers to talk to eachother, its usually more of a “How the heck did I do that?” than a “That’s exactly what I wanted it to do” type moment. Got me.
Topics: The CeDiRS Packet Network Project |
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