General Questions

hello I am new to the forum

I am the head admin for my schools network (highschool) and I alone and one or two people I am training are starting to really have it take off after years of down time, the school I go to the students run most of the things, and for the more computer geek students like my self I run the network. now we are running a Mac OS X server  and I am sick and tired of the crap it gives me, mostly the fire wall is not  very strong. I was able to crack in to it after making many goes at securing it,  and 6-7 books on firewalls and servers later ... nothing. so I said I am giving up and will go Linux, problem, I was talking with the school Directer, and he said that yes I am the admin, but after years and years of running Linux setup and ran by past admins the network was less and less sought after because a lot of the newer admins would not take care of it nor take the time to care for it, so in turn it would go down for weeks and no body would even look at it. instead of getting rid of it they went from Linux to Mac because the older admins said that might be easy for the newbies to learn, so in turn I came along a few years latter and I am now starting to grow the network but the Mac will not *grow* with me, so i said i will try to get a Linux firewall distro after reading about IPCop and the many others, and i found m0n0wall and said wow, so now i am wondering, i have read a lot of books and will take the time to learn anything, but i am at a lost, could i just set it up use only the firewall and nothing else, i got a DNS and a DHCP and all that fun stuff, I am just wanting the Firewall and maybe the NAT. how would i set it up to feed off my main network ,would it just be like a normal computer, also i don't want it to screw with my current settings on the Mac after MONTHS of fighting with it, don't even go there, but no i am just wondering if there is any advice that any Network admins or computer geeks or Joe who lives in his moms basement can give me, i would like to set it up on a old Gateway 935 Rack Mount Server that we have it fits the specs nice. I know this might sound like i am a noob or something but any help would be thanked, i do know a lot just not about this type of thing, but i am willing to learn and do research, I  have done it this far.   

Mate.. if i were you i would ditch the Mac network all together.. you cant do much with it.. what sort of client/desktops you have?? mac as well..?? for ease of use from admin point of view you should be running windows platform AD (network) with linux base firewall when it comes to security.. and you can still integrate with macs if you really want to keep them..

We are running about 17 windows (XP Pro) and 20 Macs (OS X) 

ya I would agree with you on dropping the Mac network but sadly I cant really just trash over thousands of dollars just because I  don't like it lol, but I would agree. the school really has ran Macs as desktops/clients for most of the networks time line that I know of, also like I said we have always Ran Linux up to the summer that I came up to the school from the south. The thing is the schools director said they don't have a problem with having me run Linux, but te students raise the IT fund budget
and we spent a good lot of it on the new server, and it is not very old, so to just throw it out of commission,  and I  mean I could run Linux on it but that is not something the other admins  are use to that i am trying to train. but ya I understand where you are coming from, when i go to the school today to work on things i will show the specs of the server, that might help things, but thanks for the advice, i did look it up on a website and i was able to figure how to sort of get it up and running but  am not sure. My networks DHCP is running a range of 172.16.0.0/24 as the IP leasing goes. how  would i have the DHCP pick up that it is to add it thought, i do have a HP switching hub thing that and the cables run in to and that in turn links the server to the wires and i am sure you know what i am talking about so anyway, would i just plug it in to there, or on the side there is a router that plugs in to the incoming internet feed modem thing, should i plug it in there or both. I can list more specs later.

ok maybe this would be a better question to ask.

how i get my traffic in to the m0n0wall computer, this is my setup

                       modem
                            |
                            |
                        router
                            |
                            |
                           / \
         main server    wireless
                |                  /
                |                /
            HP Ethernet Hub
                         |
                         |
                 CAT.5 box
                         |
                         |
     Ethernet connections all over the school ( that has wires leading back in to the Cat.5 box)
                         |
                         |
               Routers in the rooms.
                         |
                         |
                    Computers 
                 
where would m0n0wall fit in to this setup

                      modem
                            |
                            |
                     m0n0wall (Kinda depending on what you router is, and what it is doing)
                            |
                            |
                           / \
         main server    wireless (Do you actually have dual homed servers and a wireless router here?)
                |                  /
                |                /
            HP Ethernet Hub
                         |
                         |
                 CAT.5 box
                         |
                         |
     Ethernet connections all over the school ( that has wires leading back in to the Cat.5 box)
                         |
                         |
               Routers in the rooms.  (Routers?  How much NAT are you doing?  Why are these routers?)
                         |
                         |
                    Computers