Hardware

Hello all.

This is what I am dealing with.  I have a Linksys RT31P2 router (for Vonage) and it sucks.  It works for basic browsing and running the phone but it ends there.  I use utorrent and listen to shoutcast quite often.  When I do this I can pretty much forget about browsing (almost as bad as dial-up at times).  So I want to turn an old computer I have here into a router, which is why I am looking at m0n0wall.  It is an unnamed board with the 430tx chipset (intel) though I will be running an AMD 400 mhz chip in it (hey it worked before, just slow).  I have 128mb of pc100 ram and 1.7gb ATA-33 HD.  It also has a cd player and 1.44 floppy in it.

So will that setup support me using p2p heavily in addition a second computer which I remotely control quite often and still give me QoS for the Vonage line?  Also does any happen to know if I can turn the RT31P2 into a switch without messing up the Vonage side of the house on it?  Thanks for any input I apprecaite it.

So will that setup support me using p2p heavily in addition a second computer which I remotely control quite often and still give me QoS for the Vonage line?

Yes. That hardwared should be ample for any home setup.

Also does any happen to know if I can turn the RT31P2 into a switch without messing up the Vonage side of the house on it?

Your voip gateway's WAN must be plugged into your network, ie, mono's LAN, to function for voice. Any devices you plug into the RT31P2's LAN will be subject to its limitations whenever they access the internet.

If you're lacking a switch and you need multiple devices on your LAN but only one or two of them are using p2p, then you could add an second or third LAN interface to monowall (called OPT1 and OPT2 by default) and connect your p2p machines directly to these with crossover cables, connecting the remainder of your equipment to the RT31P2's LAN.

db

Thank you for the response  .  I actually may have a PIII 600 MHZ with 384MB of RAM given to me, so at least I know that is more than capable if you say the other set up would have worked.  I would rather use this one as it's not such a frankenputer.

Is this what I am looking at:   3 pci ethernet cards, one set up as WAN which would hook to my cable modem, another set as lan to go to the wan port on the linksys (which would have two puters plugged into that) and then a 3rd card set as lan that would go to my computer. 

I run p2p on my computer, my daughters computer is just used 30 mins per day (if she has behaved) to play little flash games like nickjr, etc.  My wife's computer is just used for basic browsing and she listens to streaming music.  So I "think" the linksys router can handle these two computers without much problems.  I use beyond remote to control them when I have to do updates/etc so being on a different network shouldn't be a problem.

Is this what I am looking at:   3 pci ethernet cards, one set up as WAN which would hook to my cable modem, another set as lan to go to the wan port on the linksys (which would have two puters plugged into that) and then a 3rd card set as lan that would go to my computer.

Yes

So I "think" the linksys router can handle these two computers without much problems.  I use beyond remote to control them when I have to do updates/etc so being on a different network shouldn't be a problem.

Short of p2p a common router should be able to manage whatever your wife and daughter will throw at it.

And by default your 2 LANs will have total access to each other, than broadcast traffic. If they don't need to intercommunicate at all then you can change the default permit LAN firewall rule to exclude local subnet destinations to reduce cross-infection in case of bad stuff.

db