[gentoo-user] GNAP-based core-router ?

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Hello, gentoo-users,

I am thinking about doing the following:

I want to use a WRAP-based embedded PC and run a GNAP-based Gentoo on
it. This box should do nothing but be an iproute2-capable core router
for about 10 (ethernet-)subnets.

Currently a Pentium3-box does this job, along with services like bind,
sendmail and squid ... it runs at one of my client's sites, and I want
to split up things to detach routing from other services. No need to cut
off several subnets just because one of the admins there reboots the
machine for "making mail work again" (yes, education needed there, there
is NO linux-knowledge there).

My questions:

Does it make sense to do my own GNAP-based OS, compiling current kernels
etc.? The main goal is rock-solid stability, so maybe it would be nice
to throw out some kernel-modules etc. Or use GNAP, as it is, out of
portage, with the currently available GNAP-core?

On the other hand this box won't get updated too often, as it should run
24/7/365 ... What security-measures would be useful on a box like this?

For the bandwidth-related questions:

You might point out that this is too little bandwidth for connecting 10
subnets. This would be true if they were all 100MBit/s-LANs, but in fact
most of them are coming in via WAN-connections of maximal 1 MBit/s. So I
don't see much problem in this, especially as the current setup handles
traffic sufficiently as well (at least it looks like ;-) ).

Any pros and cons are welcome, as well as pointers to related information.

Thanks, regards, Stefan.



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