forum.excito.org

Got my Bubba 2 today. My present home setup is:

1. an ADSL modem.

2. a very old (1996) laptop with two NIC's, running Debian Sarge, connected to 1 and 3.

3. an Ethernet switch.

4. two desktop computers, one running Ubuntu Hardy, one running Debian Sid, both connected to 3.

All addresses in the system are static (no DHCP), through /etc/hosts files.
The laptop does firewall, mailserver, and Web server (Apache) duties. It is getting very old and a bit flaky, and I bought the Bubba to replace it. I do not want to enable any administrative access to the system from the outside world, but I would like to be able to telnet from a desktop machine to the Bubba. In my present setup this is done by xinetd configuration (allowing telnet access to the laptop only from the LAN).

What is the best strategy for replacement? What I did was: just plug the LAN port of the Bubba 2 into the switch. I hoped to be able to transfer data from the old laptop to the Bubba first, before employing it as the actual gateway. But so far it seems I ended up in a quagmire. When I call "pump" from the Sid machine, I can connect to the Bubba (although no longer to the Internet), but it now refuses to let me do administration using the "admin" username and the "admin" password. I must have messed up something. Any way to set it back to defaults? And then, what would the best migration strategy be in my case?

Defaults? Run the new install on usb stick (two options: one leaves /home on your disk; location found in manual).

Then you connect your bubba to your notebook. Transfer files to it. After that is done config it as option 1 in your manual. After that is done connect wan to internet and let bubba be your firewall, mail, web. Restrictions can be set in //bubba/admin)

It is extremely important that when I change the gateway from the old laptop to the Bubba, it should work the first time. Well, my wife should not notice any change.

By messing about with various settings and using my Debian experience I can now access the Bubba through the LAN interface, both through an ssh shell and through http. I've been able to transfer most things from the laptop to the Bubba -- apart from one thing: the internet connection. I haven't dared trying this out yet.

My ISP is planet.nl. It provides pptp through an Alcatel Speedtouch adsl modem (which is, in my case, now seven years old). Does anyone know if the Bubba can handle pptp connections? Which tricks are needed?