What it is about

router-0.108 (released on 23 August 2000): Support for Winbond W6692 ISDN cards and SMC Ultra/Ultra32 NICs. Disabled firewalling of masquerading port range, so active ftp and DCC will work again. The config utility is now accessible through telnet (no place for ssh, sorry).

router-0.100 (released on 19 August 2000): State of on-demand MPP can now be changed while dialed-in (i.e. to speed up certain downloads). Also added walldns which should speed up reverse DNS queries in your LAN.

router-0.93 (released on 14 August 2000): Support for IP Port Forwarding (i.e. make servers behind the firewall accessible to the Internet), and the ICQ masquerading module. Network/ISDN settings can now be activated without rebooting.

router-0.82 (released on 13 August 2000): Added support for on-demand channel-bundling (using ibod). Additionally, syslog messages are now viewable on the fifth tty.

router-0.74 (released on 2 August 2000): Added support for more hardware, added 2.0.39pre1 patch (fixes remotely exploitable problem in the TCP/IP stack), increased masquerading timeouts, increased number of ports allocated to masquerading, and disabled Squid for now.

router-0.68 (released on 12 May 2000): Initial release.

This system enables you to convert old hardware to a secure masquerading ISDN router, including caching nameserver and HTTP/FTP proxy.

The system fits onto a single disk. Users can change the configuration through a simple menu-based system. Changes to the configuration can be stored permanently on the disk.

This system is targetted at environments which need transparent Internet access. Effectively, this means that the system automatically dials in and closes the connection after a certain period of time of inactivity. Dialin nightmares are avoided by allowing only certain IP packets to trigger a connection.

1. Grab the current floppy image from here
2. Download RAWRITE.EXE (this link points to a search engine)
3. Format a standard 1.44" HD floppy disk
4. Run rawrite router-current.image

History

This ISDN router was created, because I needed it for a client and there was no other single-disk ISDN router. The system is based on tomsrtbt, a generic mini distribution. I removed all kind of unnecessary crud from it, added a stripped-down Linux 2.0.38 kernel, kernel modules and ISDN utilities. Later, I also added DJB's dnscache and squid.

Mailing list

To subscribe to the list, send an empty email to isdn-router-subscribe@lists.scs-web.de. To send an email to the list, use isdn-router@lists.scs-web.de.

License

Parts of the system are governed by the following license.

Copyright (c) 2000, Sascha Schumann. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
• Neither name of Sascha Schumann nor the names of his contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Getting it

Download the tarball, extract it and execute the `install.s' script. It will format the disk drive, dd the floppy image to the disk and verify that the process was successful. Then simply boot from the disk.

Configuring it

Boot the system and press ALT-F4. The configuration system is basically a shell script asking questions. It currently uses two sectors on the disk to store the config (we don't need any fs for that).

I've intentionally removed all kind of shell access. If you want to gain shell access, enter the configuration, choose option 1 and enter `exec sh` (these are backticks).

Configuring clients

The router should be the default gateway (the default IP is 10.0.0.1). You can configure web browsers to use the router as a proxy (it is on port 3128).

Internet access in Germany

The distributed tarball is setup for Arcor Internet by Call, because you do not need to register yourself for using their service. But they are not cheap (6pf per call + 4.9pf per minute). I recommened using Comundo (5pf per call + 2.9pf per minute). Register yourself and configure the router system to use the assigned username and password. Their dialin number is 019161.

TODO

Evaluate supporting IDE disks for proxy storage.
Revamp configuration system to use curses-based menu.
Add support for more ISDN cards.
Add support for more NICs.
Add DHCP server.