I wanna introduce Ipcop/Smoothwall since there's really no thread dedicated to this piece of powerful free yet router software.

Why buy an expensive router, when you can make it your by your own with an old computer.


Smoothwall m0n0wall
Ip-cop ClarkConnect Pfsense

important tools: Putty WinSCP
To use above tool, u need to enable SSH port. In ipcop u can find that feature SYSTEM>SSH ACCESS: TICK [SSH ACCESS]

It is an open source firewall distribution based on the GNU/Linux operating system.
Well then, You can do anything to it. There're many addons for it. Qos, p2p blocker, traffic shaping, even load balancing(still in early stage), antivirus, most importantly a really powerful firewall.

I'm using ipcop. It contains almost all the important features from Smoothwall.

I can see beautiful traffic graphs


Layer7 blocker is an addon worth mentioning. It blocks connection based on protocol. Bt, emule, kazaa for example.

Ipcop even allow battlenet user to host and play with LAN users.
Pretty good feature i say, for those Dota kakis who is having trouble hosting and playing housemate in our very own battlenet private server, blue-server.

All you need to do is do some tricks on the host file.

i've written a step-by-step tutorial for it at HERE


*this thread is to help ppl understand more abt linux networking, firewall and help ppl who has trouble installing it or to host a game in battlennet and ur lan frens can join. lol

This post has been edited by syyang85: Mar 28 2007, 05:06 AM

hi there. it could be more useful if u post this under the "linux and open source software" thread. i bet that more people will learn from this. keep up the good work then!

Hmm..Well, since there's a dlink DSL-500T club thread. I've might as well make a DIY router thread. =D

This post has been edited by syyang85: Oct 30 2006, 03:12 AM

thats even better

ipcop is freaking good ... but u might can even try ClarkConnect (community edition) but i have 1 problem... how to integrate wireless in these things?

self build routers are so damn good, it never hangs and stuff (as becoz the hardware itself already surpassed all those routers in the market (im talking bout home use routers, not commercial )) but the problem is the box is too big ...

tried finding some minibox, nanobox, wrapbox in the net. but they are too expensive, added with shipping is totally unacceptable ... sob sob ... guess this kind of trend not yet heat up in malaysia

This post has been edited by Christopher_LKL: Oct 27 2006, 09:33 AM

al these for linux only ? are these programs available for windows ?? I m linux n00b I having hard time to linux , I don't even know how to install stuff , those command are too

Mostly thr are based on UNIX, Linux is just a branch from the UNIX family. Other firewall distribution such as m0n0wall and Pfsense are based on BSD which is a branch from the UNIX family too. I'm just learn learning Linux too. Actually its fairly easy to install ipcop. And i've written a step-by-step installation tutorial in my blog. The link is at my 1st post. If u read my tutorial, you'll find out that u dont even need to write and commands. its all in GUI mode. Even grandmas knows how to install. =D

Lol, actually i wanted to try clarkconnect out. But i ran out of cds!! I hav used up my cd burning smoothwall 2 and 3, pfsense, m0n0wall and ipcop. ClarkConnect is really more user friendly. As for ur question, Im not familiar in tat range. AFAIK thrs little support for wireless adapter, most of it are PCI based. I only hav usb wireless adapter. So, too bad. Cant try it out. Or for ease of sake, just plug in a wireless router? That wud do the job fairly easy.

Yeah.. My linux box is damn large and heavy. =D but it's powered with Celeron 333Mhz , 4Gb HDD and 128mb RAM. Any commercial router out thr with such spec? lol. you know, D-link dsl-500t is based on busybox.

This post has been edited by syyang85: Oct 27 2006, 02:12 PM

Finally somebody is in with this DIY router

I'm in the planning to built a router running Mikrotik to do multi wan load balancing. Should read up on Mikrotik as well, very very very strong and stable RouterOS Web based configuration and managing

Heck even a pentium running edo ram is suffecient for these kinda system.

i've tried Smoothwall, IPCop, ClarkConnect (CE) and SME Server 7 for my router-wannabe and finally settled for ClarkConnect for now.

My purpose is an all-in-one firewall, router, webserver and fileserver. I would've used ipcop for it (due to its great gui, managing and logging function), except that in the end i realized it is intended solely for firewall+routing solution. If you decided to host a webpage or samba-ing, it's better to go for all-in-one like clarkconnect and sme server - because it's meant to be that way - an all-in-one, where as ipcop/smoothwall/monowall is dedicated for firewall/routing (i break my ipcop once when i tried to make it a torrent server + webserver - done a lot of compiling and then it starts to act funny) linux n00b

so far, having a dedicated pc router is great, except for the electric bills your linux have to run 24hrs and with all the clients running too, it just adds up to the bills (+1 pc) anyway, i would rather have this than the router+modem combo im having (aztech 600eu).. more than 400 connection and it will hang, need to reboot modem and after 12hrs reboot again well not with this beast, 6k connection currently and it didn't give a damn add that with a web proxy function, intrusion detection system, system statistics, mailserver, QoS and webserver = win.

just remember though, if u are concerned about security and at the same time want to have all this webserver/mailserver/any service that needs incoming connection, better to add another server like this


Currently my clarkconnect box serves as a torrent server, video/mp3 encoder and fileserver for my network. Still trying to find a better bt client for linux other than torrentflux i can't afford to install azureus in my server with 128mb ram

I think this topic should be about discussing about dedicated pc running as a router/firewall/server for home network. What u say?

And one more thing, if you are just running one or two pc in your network, i think it's better to just use the router modem combo.. not much processing power needed, unless both of the pc is used heavily for bt/internet/server function.

p/s: oh, n for those of u who are afraid with linux - relax~ before this i also know nothing, but now know how to configure, make and make install it's easy unless you decided to add something up to the default installation. and even when you decided to do so, it's still not that hard. google is your friend

This post has been edited by angeldothack: Oct 27 2006, 10:18 PM

Angeldothack:

Yeah, looks like we all here have some common interest. cheers~ I've change the thread title to DIY router. =D So that we can discuss all of those wonderful DIY routers. I can't agree with you more. It's the problem with the commercial routers out there is lack of support and function. And routers with more function costs more~ talk abt money for value.
I've used ZTE, Aztech, and Dlink too. They cant really handle too many connections. They'll just hang after hours of mass p2p dl-ing. Sucks really.

have you tried installing copfilter in ur ipcop box? it's a great addition, in a way it includes ClamAv antivirus that integrates with the built-in squid proxy (i used advproxy - more options than the default one) i've also tried doing a sigx script that can be cron'd (if u felt like showing off your ipcop box) but too bad i didn't save it >.<

after I read yr blog , I start to be interested liao. Err ... This works like an OS right ? I just straight boot the cd then install.

thanks for sharing

I download first , next week I going to try this when I am free

ok ... I have tried is quite simple to install. I manage to make my DHCP server working , other are quite normal. I still can't manage to use PPPoE because I dont have another nic which compatible with this. I have another DLink network card extra , can some1 please tell me how to install the driver for that card ? The driver does include in IPCop cd LOL I going to blame u for giving me this panda eyes now I didn't sleep just to play around with this

This post has been edited by wilson88: Oct 28 2006, 02:46 AM

Lol. Tangan gatal already. Nop, u do not need to install any drivers for it. It recognizes almost all the chipsets used in the network adapter in the market. So, no worries. I'm using Zyxel and Dlink NIC. Both detected using Realtek chipset.

This post has been edited by syyang85: Oct 28 2006, 02:50 AM

The problem my crappy D-Link NIC is not using REALTEK chipset

damn !@#@!#!@$!@#!@#!# it is not in the compatible list too.

I am getting desperate for another NIC liao !! Tempted to open [WTB] NIC at garage sales liao

Curst D-Link I haet D-Link I hate my stupid D-Link 500G , and I hate the stupid NIC too .

Does this works with any router?

My 'router' also use D-Link card (2 of them), and both of them detected as realtek8139

boblp: i think it will work with any router that have rj-45 port. heck, u didn't even need any router anyway, since your server will be your router. the only thing needed is an adsl modem, switch and a pc with a network card (x2)

Thats strange, im using dlink DFE-528TX NIC, its detected. Did u probe it properly? just follow my steps. Dun worry. Patience is a virtue.

Yeap. Works with any modem, modem/router but not router only. Since, this linux box only do the dialing and routing.Its not a modem, so u still need a modem.

This post has been edited by syyang85: Oct 28 2006, 12:18 PM

I am using D-Link 530TX hoping I didn't slot properly unto the pci slot. Err ... if I'm not mistaken , I read somewhere in the forum too . Other ppl using the same network card having the same problem

Hmm...from source i found out that dlink DGE 530TX uses Marvell Yukon 88E80xx PCI 10/100/1000Base chipset.
How abt selecting the chipset manually?

This post has been edited by syyang85: Oct 28 2006, 01:00 PM