Hi everybody,
Our small company recently decided to go it alone in the big bad world of the Internet. Initially we were going to use a lone computer using Win98 Internet sharing ( we're on peer/peer and don't really need much in the way of domains ) with that computer being the access point, with Sygate Firewall Pro running on it to act the 'bouncer'.
It was decided by one 'in the know' employee to get the lone computer to run Windows 2000 Server software, after a bit of fiddling we got the thing up and running, great.
We also got the Sygate firewall Pro running on it, only the trial version, we've yet to commit to a certain firewall and anti-virus ( our AV is a few years old, and to my knowledge nobody has ever bothered to update it, 'We're not NASA is the general reply' ).
Everything so far is great and dandy, but!!
The nature of our company uses a lot of the Internet, which the general public has access to. We've had several issues with people going to unfavourable sites (rotten, kazaa software, face-party, things like that ).
Now I know you can block certain IP addresses, which I did, but when I get up to about 25-30 blocks, the Sygate firewall crashes, blocking everything, I tried this about 5 times but ended up with a line of people behind me ready to 'do me in'.
The computer we are using for the access point is a normal desktop, 1.6 GHZ CPU, 256Meg of RAM with a 40Gig HDD.
What do you reckon?? normal servers look like small cupboards, double CPU's ect.
Are we asking too much of this type of computer to be a server as well as guardian of our workgroup ( we can sometimes have 15-20 people accessing the Internet at any one time) or do you think we've just not configured the thing right?
If you've got this far, thanks, I tend to waffle. The answer could save me weeks trying to resolve the problem and then finding I've been pi***** in the wind.
Cheers.
Our small company recently decided to go it alone in the big bad world of the Internet. Initially we were going to use a lone computer using Win98 Internet sharing ( we're on peer/peer and don't really need much in the way of domains ) with that computer being the access point, with Sygate Firewall Pro running on it to act the 'bouncer'.
It was decided by one 'in the know' employee to get the lone computer to run Windows 2000 Server software, after a bit of fiddling we got the thing up and running, great.
We also got the Sygate firewall Pro running on it, only the trial version, we've yet to commit to a certain firewall and anti-virus ( our AV is a few years old, and to my knowledge nobody has ever bothered to update it, 'We're not NASA is the general reply' ).
Everything so far is great and dandy, but!!
The nature of our company uses a lot of the Internet, which the general public has access to. We've had several issues with people going to unfavourable sites (rotten, kazaa software, face-party, things like that ).
Now I know you can block certain IP addresses, which I did, but when I get up to about 25-30 blocks, the Sygate firewall crashes, blocking everything, I tried this about 5 times but ended up with a line of people behind me ready to 'do me in'.
The computer we are using for the access point is a normal desktop, 1.6 GHZ CPU, 256Meg of RAM with a 40Gig HDD.
What do you reckon?? normal servers look like small cupboards, double CPU's ect.
Are we asking too much of this type of computer to be a server as well as guardian of our workgroup ( we can sometimes have 15-20 people accessing the Internet at any one time) or do you think we've just not configured the thing right?
If you've got this far, thanks, I tend to waffle. The answer could save me weeks trying to resolve the problem and then finding I've been pi***** in the wind.
Cheers.