Freesco is a fully functional software router. It is made from a stripped down Linux, with only the kernel and netwerk functionality remaining. What remains fits on a floppy, can run on a 386 with 8 MB, and is a complete router with added services such as fire wall, DNS, DHCP etc.
A router is by far the best way to connect a local network to the internet : a proxy server can be tricky to set up for e-mail, ICQ, games, etc. No such trouble with routers. Unbfortunately, routers tend to be expensive machines. But with a software router such as Freesco, it's perfectly possible to change an old PC in to a great router.
To start with : a personal computer that you'll make the router. Could be a 386 with 6 MB RAM. A 486 with 8 or 16 MB RAM is better, especially if you'll want to run services such as DNS and DHCP etc. A Hard Drive is not necessary but can be usefull if you want to log events. You may use a PC that has DOS or Windows installed on it, but iot will not be possible to run Freesco and Windows simultanously : when started, freesco will take over the PC colmpltely. It is, however, possible to have a choice wheter you want to boot DOS/Windows, or Freesco. This will be shown later
You'll need an etherned card to connect this PC to your network. A standard NE2000 will do, and 3Com 509, 595 en 905 series are supported automatically as well. For other network cards, you'll need to install additional modules.
An empty floppy that will become your freesco boot diskette. Freesco is designed to run off the floppy, but can be coppied to the hard disk after you've set it up, if you wish to do so.
Your internet provider's logon information, such as your username and password, phone number to dial, address of DNS server, ... You may find most of this information in the documentation of your ISP setup, or at your provider's support page.
Freesco can be set up to work with more than 1 internet access account, with several providers. You can start with one, to see how it goes, then add the others later.
Last but not least : the freesco software, from Freesco 's download pagina. While your at it, download the modules.zip for support of additional network adapters, and the freesco manual, that will be very helpfull for customizing your configuration, or general troubleshooting.
Assuming that the PC is working, first of all you need to add a network adapter (ethernet card) that will connect the router to your local network. Then, you'll also need to add a device that will connect the router to the internet : a modem (internal or external), or a 2nd ethernet card that will connect to the cable modem. USB is currently not supported. Stay away from "winmodems" : they need Windows in able to work, and Windows, so or Freesco (or any other operating system) they're useless.
Note that you may now need two ethernet cards in this pc, if one is necessary to connect to your cable modem. This may be confusing sometimes. To get it right, remember that a router has a WAN-side, that connects to the internet, and a LAN side, that connects to your local network. The WAN side will need to be configured acoording to your Internet Provider's specifications re. subnet masks, IP addresses, etc, the LAN side is part of your network, and will need to be configured to match the addressing in your local network.
When using a modem dial-up connection, this modem connection becomes the WAN-side of your router.
This paper will provide you with some information if you're new at all this : Basic concepts of Home Networks.
You will need to disable Plug and Play on the ethernet card(s) : this can be done by setting jumpers on the card (see the documentation that came with your cards, or look them up on the internet), or through the configuration software provided with the network cards. Next, you will need to know the IRQ and I/O port of the cards. These are numbers that Freesco (or any operating system) needs to know in order to communicate with the cards. The documentation and/or configuration software that came with the cards (or which can be found at the manufacturer's support or tech page) will help you out.
Be sure the disable PnP, and set (and write down) the IRQ and I/O ports of the cards before you start. You will need this information when configuring Freesco, except if you're using PCI cards, then Freesco will handle this.
Likewise, when using a modem, you'll need to know its 'init-string'. This is a string of modem commands that will be to the modem to 'inbitialise' it before it starts making its connection. Using the correct modem string improves performance. If you don't know the init-string of your modem, you need to try and find it. Meanwhile, you can try if ATZ, AT&F or AT&F1 will do the trick. These are 3 simple modem init strings that will almost always work, but do not guarantee top performance.
Install the network cards, connect the modem, etc. to complete hardware preparations.
Unzip the freesco archive to a temory directory, and run make.fd.bat. This will copy a disk image to the floppy disk to turn it in to a bootable Freesco (Linux) disk.
Put the floppy disk in the router pc and turn the machine on. Freesco will boot. When prompted, you log in with username "root and password "root". (You can change this later). The router should start in "setup mode" automatically, or you van force it to by typing setup.
You need to decide what type of router you want (modem dial up, ISDN, cable modem ...), depending on what type of internet access account you have, then, answer a whole list of questions about your router pc, your network and about your internet provider. It's all well explained on the screen, and not really more difficult from setting up an internet- and e-mail account on a regular pc. You can also refer to the manual if something is not clear. (see LINKS).
http://www.freesco.org/~drb/en/030p5.htmWhen don, press 's' to save, then reboot the machine. If all is well, the rooter will start. You'll see a list of services started. Check if anything says "failed", you'll need to look in to that. The router is started before the login prompt appears : you do not need to log in to use the router, only if you want to change the configuration.
Your PC needs to know how to connect to the internet, i.e. it needs to know that the router will take care of all internet connections. Therefore, you need to tell it the IP address of the router as "default router" or "default gateway".
This is done in the Network Properties. (Control Panel : Network, or right-click the network icon on the desktop)
If you don't have TCP/IP installed, you can add it from here : Add : Protocol : Microsoft : TCP/IP.
Then check that there's a "TCP/IP -> (your network adapter)" line there, Select it, and choose properties.
Add the IP address of your router as gateway :
While you're at it, give this machine a valid IP address and subnet mask, in the IP address tab :
You may skip this step if you've chosen to run a DHCP service on your Freesco router ; DHCP assigns IP addresses to the hosts as they present themselves.
Lastly, you'll probably be using server names in stead of IP addresses in a lot of your internet software. You're telling internet explorer to go to www.google.com, not some numbers. Your e-mail program will look for mail.someprovider.com or pop3.someprovider.com in stead of their addresses. So you'll need a DNS server to translate these names in the correct address.
Again, tell your computer that the Freesco machine will take care of DNS-ing by putting the router's IP address in the DNS tab :
you'll need to give a hostname, and a domain : the same domain you've put in the Freesco configuration.
Click OK, Save, etc, and reboot for changes to take affect.
If you're using Microsoft Internet Explorer (very likely when you're using Windows), you may want to tell it to not use dial-in if there is a network :
(Control Panel : Internet options : Connection :)
Repeat this on every PC you want to use with Freesco to connect to the internet.
This works for Windows 98, Microsoft Internet Explorer (so probably also for Outlook / Outlook Express - but that I did not test because I don't use it myself), and Pegasus Mail.
Other Windows Systems may have slightly different dialog windows, but basically it should be as explained.
In other operating systems (Linux, ) You'll probably have to do something similar as explained here, but the way to do it will most likely be a bit different. As I'm not an experienced Linux user, I wont elaborate on it. Sorry.
You can decide to copy the floppy to the hard disk and run it from there. To do this, start the pc without freesco floppy. If there is no more operating system, use a bootable DOS floppy or a Windows rescue disc and copy operating system files with the 'sys a: c:' command. Make a direcory c:\router and copy the contents of the freesco floppy in to it. Then, copy router.bat to c:\.
You can now start your router by clicking router.bat in Windows explorer, or typing 'c:\router' at a dos prompt or in Windows' Start:Run box.
you can also enter 'c:\router.bat'in to the autoexec.bat to automatically start the router. This will always automatically start the router, so maybe its better to edit this so that the router is started automatically within 10 seconds, unless you hit a given key to make DOS or Windows boot in stead. If you ever want to use this machine for something else, this will make it possible to start DOS or Windows in stead of Freesco, and use it as an ordinary PC.
To make it so, add the following lines to autoexec.bat :
REM **** ROUTER SECTION ***** REM this section starts Freesco Router (Linux) ECHO. ECHO start Freesco Router [R] or Windows [W] ? ECHO router will start automatically in 10 seconds ... CHOICE /C:RW /T:R,10 If errorlevel 2 goto end router.bat :end
Finally, you can, if the BIOS of the router PC allows it, disconnect the monitor and key board from the PC (You'll have to adjust some BIOS settings to avoid boot error messages). Freesco can be configured and monitored from a remote pc, such as your work station, through telnet and - if you've enabled it in Freesco - through a web interface.
In stead of Freesco, you might just want to set up a Linux system and configure it as a router and firewall.