Best Linux distro for old hardware, SSH SOCKS proxy?

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
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My wife has an old Compaq Presario 5000 (667MHz CPU, 64MB RAM) that I can use as a Linux server.

Since I may have to move into a Starbucks to go online, I want to encrypt my traffic as it passes over public wi-fi. A friend sent me a link to this guide and I'd like to use it to get things rolling.

My question is: What Linux distro is best for old hardware, with the purpose of creating and hosting a SSH SOCKS proxy?

I'd also like to manage the server remotely and use the server as a secure file repository (for backups and such).
 
i would suggest a server copy of xubuntu or centos.


edit: blah just noticed 64mb ram, http://damnsmalllinux.org/ is your best bet. it can run a SSH off the live

does this proxy thing also mask bandwith usage?
 
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Tek7 said:
My wife has an old Compaq Presario 5000 (667MHz CPU, 64MB RAM) that I can use as a Linux server.

Since I may have to move into a Starbucks to go online, I want to encrypt my traffic as it passes over public wi-fi. A friend sent me a link to this guide and I'd like to use it to get things rolling.

My question is: What Linux distro is best for old hardware, with the purpose of creating and hosting a SSH SOCKS proxy?

I'd also like to manage the server remotely and use the server as a secure file repository (for backups and such).
Click to expand...
any linux distro has ssh. I would try freenas. It will turn tht mahcine into a network storage device and of course has ssh. however you need to setup a vpn between your mahcine and your home network or your security is zero.
 
Use fedora and remove all the graphical junk, you can get the memory usage to < 70MB doing that (my server uses ~120MB with 16 PHP threads, 2 Lighttpd threads and MySQL) and ssh works with socks pretty much out of the box. I would recommend you install denyhosts or equivalent brute force monitoring and prevention otherwise people will hose your server with automated attack bots. My server adds 3-5 IPs per day that attempt to dictionary attack the server to hosts.deny.

SSH connections are encrypted, and socks goes via an SSH tunnel.
 
question, i have everything already setup because this made me very curious but i keep getting denied permission to enter even though im using

ssh -ND [port number] username@[my current ip]

it asks me for a password and i give it the one for that specific username and its not going through. ideas?

if i use my local ip 192.168.1.103 it seems to go through but then it says port 22 refused when im using a diff port ???
 
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For socks I use "ssh -D portnumhere hostname", you actually have to connect to port 22 (or whatever the server is configured for), but it opens the "portnumhere" on the localhost for socks.
 
I'm working on setting up ClarkConnect right now. I've installed and run ClarkConnect before, so it's somewhat familiar. I'll see if it's sufficient to get the SSH SOCKS proxy working. If not, I'll chuck it and pick another distro.

DSL or FreeNAS are my next choices should ClarkConnect not work.
 
how do we know when its working though? i think i finally got it configured right. the password went through, i set the proxy settings, but everything (ie. websites )loads regardless if the settings are correct or not
 
Setting up a proxy in OSX:
proxy_network_osx.png


proxy_firefox.png


proxy_setup_firefox.png

You would likely need to use the manual configuration in windows.
 
vibrokatana said:
Setting up a proxy in OSX:
proxy_network_osx.png


proxy_firefox.png

(what is missing is the dialog for this, which can either use automatic or manual configuration including SOCKS)
Click to expand...

ummm..... why is it in mac osx...... :( we use xp. i think i figured it out though. internet settings in IE that said to automatically detect settnigs so that was messing it up. with that disabled, the settings for the proxy have to be dead on or else stuff wont load so im assuming its working now?
 
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Okay, I have the proxy working.

I run the command ssh -ND 53248 root@xxx.xxx.net (domain purposely concealed) in Cygwin (with OpenSSH module installed) then configure Firefox to use localhost:53248 as my SOCKS5 proxy.



Okay, so I've secured my web browsing.

I did have a question, though:

Is there a way to simplify all this? It's a royal pain in the rear to do this every time I want to surf over a secure connection.

Not to mention that I still need to set up my chat client (Trillian) and e-mail client (Outlook) to send and receive data over secure connections.

Oy.

Isn't there a program with a GUI that makes this all easier?

EDIT: One other thing: Why can I only SSH in as root? I can't SSH in as the other accounts I created on the server.
 
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