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Atrocities said:
Ok, so how would I take an old PC and turn it into a server or what not that my other PC's use to access the web? I was thinking about leaving it one all the time to host files and what not.
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Well first you need to decide if you want a firewall or a file server. The firewall should be just that and nothing else. You could also use it for web page caching or DNS caching with no loss of security.
All you need is a decent PC with two nics. Decent does not mean some POS the wasn’t reliable three years ago when you put it out in the barn.
Set the external nic to address by DHCP and hook it up to your cable/DSL modem. Set the other nic to your internal (local) address and hook it to your switch. This address is now your gateway and will be set on all of your clients. If you want, you can set up a DHCP server on the box and automatically address your workstations. But with less than 10 systems, it’s more work than it’s worth.
The best free firewall with balls is the one in FreeBSD. Just load FreeBSD (DL it) and then make some changes to the kernel and you have a firewall as good as a Sonicwall or PIX. It’ll block everything as installed so you’ll need to enter some filters, and because it’s nix, it’s all done from a cmd prompt. Here is a link with how to set it up and what filters to add.
FreeBSD firewall setup
With that said, ISA server from MS is a lot more user friendly and just as good. But you will have to pay something for it and the Server install that it runs on. If you are going to the uni, then you might be able to get it cheap.