Kind of a stupid question....

[Falcon]

Ok, for internet access at my house we use an @home cable modem pluged into an uplink port on our switch (we have like, 5 comps). Now, in windows I just put in a Computer Name and a Work group and DHCP does the rest. Can I do this under Red Hat 7.0, or do I need to put my info in manually? Please tell me how? Also, @home scans you, if I want to run a web server (for expirmentation only) will PortSentry stop them, or do I need to do something else too? Is it possible to stop them completly as they will probably have logs of people connection to me at port 80 and go "Oh!"?

Any help is apreciated,
Falcon

[:david:]

you can setup dhcp really easily through linuxconf.
as for using portsentry to block connections, i don't think so. port scanners attempt connections, and if you're using portsentry to block so strictly, then you won't have much of an opportunity to test your servers. your best bet is to run servers legally, with a dsl provider. most, i believe, don't really care what you do as long as you don't eat up a lot of transfer and make money from your servers. you can use ip masquerading to connect as many machines as you want via a linux or NT gateway box.
also remember that crackers are more likely to hit big providers (like @home) than smaller companies. so getting your ip from a local dsl provider may be more safe than cable modems. plus you're inherently insecure connecting windows machines straight to the net (not behind a firewall). if you put up a linux firewall/gateway box, connect everything (via ip masquerading) behind it, you can play with all the services you want (apache, ftp ...) and just block everything at the firewall. your provider will never know.

------------------
david@us.aduva.com
http://www.aduva.com

[Falcon]

Ok, thanks.

------------------
"Freedom of Speech, The Press, And Source Code!"