The new network map worked perfect....almost. There is one issue where I can't access the relays from my workstation. I can access them from my wireless laptop though. Not too big of a problem. The strange thing is that I can ping them just fine.

Next thing is upgrading my router to FreeBSD. I just can't get the LMC card to run in frame relay mode in FreeBSD. Looks like it's a lost cause. I have a setup script from SBE, but it does not work.

I decided that I just don't need to run FreeBSD on it. I'll just setup a small box that only does routing. Or maybe I'll try and get a Cisco router. I guess I can just run Linux on a small box for now. I'm going to move my router system from the current setup to a smaller embedded type system. That should do it for that. I can just hang it on the wall or something. Maybe get a rack mount case for it.

Then I'll use the router system as the new VPN system. I'll install FreeBSD with the PPPoE/PPTP stuff on it. That should work out well.

Next I need to convert my database server and mail server over to FreeBSD. I have a Postfix setup on ***entory that uses the Postgres database server. That should work out really well in my setup.

Soon I will be totally converted over to FreeBSD....soon...

I asked the author of m0n0wall about my network setup. He suggested some changes that I'm going to implement tonight. Here is the map:

I believe that this will be the most correct setup for my configuration. I sure hope it works correctly. We will see.

So here is what I've been doing on the weekends. Now that I have a 4x4, I can play in the hills with the other 4x4ers in the family.

In this photo we are climbing a crazy steep and lose hill. It took me many tries to get up it. My poor Samurai hasn't been running too good. I need to do some work on it.

This photo was taken, basically, in our back yard. Actually over the hill behind the house. Only a few miles away. It's fun driving around out here in Silver Springs. I'm planning on taking another drive this weekend if the weather is good.

It has been very busy here. I reconfigured my whole network here at BMG50. I sure hope all the work is worth it. I changed from static assigned IP's to DHCP assigned ones. I also switched out a faulty relay. The new relay on my antenna is a three radio Soekris board. I configured it to have one radio for each zone. I'm thinking that I'll get more bandwidth this way. I also installed M0n0wall on it. I really like the firewall setup, but I'm having a hard time trying to figure out the routing.

I also tried to install FreeBSD on my router, but I could not get the SBE T1 card to work right with Frame Relay. So I'm back to Linux on that system. Bummer. I'll check with SBE later to figure it out. Maybe in a few days I'll get an answer.

So far I have a bit over half my customers reconfigured. I'm still making calls and changing settings. It's been a rough few days. I didn't even sleep on saturday night. Stayed up configuring networks and stuff all night.

Well, I've got more customers to help out. I'll write more about the network config later.

I'm so stuck on this routing problem. I just can't figure it out. Here is what I want to do:

Internet router .1 .6 Access Point A Relay B .7 10.0.0.1 - .255 Client.

I'm stuck at the routing for the Access Point and the Relay. I want to put everything on the same subnet, except for the clients. They will be on a private subnet. But I want them to be able to access the router. I think that if I just setup the relays to do NAT, that will work just fine. Now the hard part. Getting the routing right from the main access point to the relay client. So, say the access point is .6 and the relay is .7.... I'm realizing another problem. The main access point has a ethernet and three radios. There will have to be addresses for each. So...

.1 ->
.5 Router .6 ->
.7 Relay-1 -> NAT
.8 -> .9 Relay-2 -> NAT

I'm not sure how to get the .7 through the .6 and .5 to the router at .1, and .9 through .8 and .5 to the router at .1.

I'm lost.

I forgot to add this the other day. I've been so busy with work and all. Here is the watch that Jane got me for Valentines Day. It's awesome, exactly what I was looking for. I take it with me everywhere. Anyway, I wanted to share it before I totally forgot.

So I went ahead and bought another wireless card for my WRIP from Net Nimble. I'm going to install it and see what happens. I've been told that it will have problems with the two PCMCIA cards. I can't find anyone having problems that are using the same hardware on the net. It's the Soekris Net4521. Everyone that I read about loves them. I guess I'll find out.

So far I'm having really good luck with FreeBSD. I've setup PPTP and it works great. I have not configured it for my main server yet, but I'm still trying to figure out the PPPoE stuff. The only reason I need PPPoE is for Playstation. What I'm going to do is run both. PPTP for the Windows computers and PPPoE for things that don't have PPTP. That should do well.

The new WRIP from NetNimble is working out really well in my tests also. I had an extra Flash card, so I put M0n0Wall on it. It booted up in the WRIP just fine, and now I have a full featured firewall router. It does everything. I kinda like it. It also runs on FreeBSD.

So next week is the day. It's going to be a lot of work, but after I make the switch, then everything will be easy. Auto-Configs so I don't have to have customers make changes will be a great saver in it's self. Then the PPTP security features will help a lot there also. Also setting up new customers will be simple. No more messing with a bunch of IP addresses.

Well, I need to do some other things now.

I just realized that to swap out my WRIP's I'll have to reset all the customers using them. This is because they are connecting using the MAC address. This is not good.

So I am going to make the big change over on the 21st, 22nd of this month. I will switch the hardware and then change the config on all customers.

Fun fun fun. I'm going with DHCP for all customers and bridges. Then I'm going to setup a captive portal to capture all connections and redirect them to my BMG50 web site. Then I will pass all PPPoE connections through the firewall to the outside.

I hope my plan works.

Here is a funny SPAM message:

Dont put your soul at risk. Accept God into your life while you have time. Contact a local church or prayerline today. He is real do not be in Hell when you realize it!

What is funny about this email is that if they had read their Bible, they would know that there is no Hell.