Networking through Amahi

[S3ntentious]

How can you setup Amahi to be an actual router.

Our cheap Sitecom router keeps going down and using Amahi I want to test if it is the router going down or that something else is going on.

It gets internet through interface 1, after that it should put through the internet from interface 1 to another network interface, network interface 2.
Network interface 2 will be connected to a switch which has several computers connected to it.

In semi-schematics: WAN -> Amahi -> Switch -> Home desktops.

Thanks in advance,

S3ntentious

PS. Perhaps this goes better in the General > Installation Forum, please change this if neccesary.

[toothandnail]

How can you setup Amahi to be an actual router.

At the moment, you can't. Amahi supports one ethernet connection and has no options for NAT that I'm aware of.

To do what you want, you would be better looking at something like SME Server (http://wiki.contribs.org/Main_Page) or possibly eBox (http://www.ebox-platform.com/).

Maybe Amahi will devlop that type of functionality, but it doesn't have it a present.

Paul.

[S3ntentious]

Amahi supports one ethernet connection and has no options for NAT that I'm aware of.

If Amahi has no support for NAT I see no use of DNS and DHCP, those 2 services are best to be used on the same system that provides the home-networks computers NAT.

The media-server in Amahi makes a lot more sense. Servers providing those services are likely to be connected to the home network, rather than being an router/switch/dhcp/dns.

Just my 2 cents,

Thanks for the advice on SME and eBox, I will try those two options.

~S3ntentious

[moredruid]

Code: Select all

route add default gw <IP of eth1>

that should do the trick... if that doesn't work you can set the default gateway in /etc/sysconfig/network; just add "GATEWAY=<IP of eth1>" and give the following command (from preferably a local terminal): service network restart

it is important however that your eth1 IP address doesn't change every day otherwise you need to modify the config time and time again.

[S3ntentious]

Thanks moredruid, that will help.

Although it does bring me to a second question.

Amahi provides al his services to the first network interface, which in my case is connected to a modem.
This means it provides services to a place where none of my computers are connected to.

Can you make Amahi provide services to the home LAN by changing the ethernet connection it provides its services to?

What is also possible is to connect the home network to eth0 and the modem to eth1, than configure the default route as moredruid suggested, will it then divert all traffic from eth1 to eth0.

One final question, however this might solve the problem, this also means there is no firewall over the incoming traffic, it is basically put onto the home network, without looking if it is potentially dangerous traffic.

~S3ntentious

Edit: Eth1 will need to have a static IP, that won't be a problem. Our ISP gives out somewhat static IP's, they rarely ever change, on the home network a static IP can just be set.

[toothandnail]

Amahi supports one ethernet connection and has no options for NAT that I'm aware of.

If Amahi has no support for NAT I see no use of DNS and DHCP, those 2 services are best to be used on the same system that provides the home-networks computers NAT.

Amahi's DHCP and DNS servers are mainly a means of making its installed applications easily available to other machines on the LAN. It is (currently at least) aimed mainly at home networks, most of which will have a DHCP server built into a router, but few of which will have anything like a DNS server. In its design role, it has no need for NAT or routing services, and, so far as I am aware, has no provision for them at all. Since it is Linux, they could be added, but I think it is questionable whether that is worth doing or not. Having a local DNS service is useful to a home network, and (in my expericne at least), the Amahi DHCP server is quite a bit quicker at IP allocation than the DHCP server in my Netgear router.

Amahi also currently supports only one ethernet port. As Moredruid has outlined, it is possible to add another port, but you would have to use that as your WAN interface, and leave eth0 for internal services. You would also need to add a firewall, since Amahi, by design, has no need of one, and does not have one.

Thanks for the advice on SME and eBox, I will try those two options.

Both are easy to set up as gateway servers, and can easily provide routing and NAT services. Neither have the application infrastructure that makes Amahi so appealing. eBox is the more flexible of the two, but also the more complext to set up. eBox is especially useful for people with more than one WAN interface, since it can provide load balancing and failover services for multiple WAN interfaces.

Using either with Amahi may be complicated, since both also possess DHCP and DNS servers. I have one customer that I have set up with an SME server as a gateway/mail server and an Amahi server as an internal application/file server. This is working fairly well, but I did have to add hostname entries for every Amahi application that he has installed (since I am having to use the SME DHCP and DNS servers). For some reaons, even with a hostname entry, Feng office will not work on one machine in his network.

Since SME is providing gateway/routing services for his network, I don't think I can afford to turn off its DHCP/DNS services ( I'm not even quite sure that I can turn them off), but it would be very useful to be albe to use one as a DNS relay, so that Amahi applications could be used more directly.

Paul.

[S3ntentious]

Without NAT routing and an internet gateway Amahi functions more like a NAS than an actual home server. My home network is more then just a bunch of files and some DNS. I need it to be an Gateway, NAT router, and if possible also an ISCSI client to use my NAS as an ISCSI target.

Amahi is an PERFECT home server solution to use togetter with an NAT Router wich also acts as gateway. However, what I wanted to use Amahi for is not possible.

My search for an homeserver that can completely replace my router and my NAS continues...

Thanks for the help figuring out what Amahi can and what it can't do.

~S3ntentious

[moredruid]

That it's not possible out of the box doesn't mean it isn't possible at all. Since Amahi is based on a normal linux distribution you can install the packages and configure them for using your server as a NAT device / internet gateway. It just means that you need to configure iptables for NAT/masquerading. Maybe you'll need DNS-mask as well but I'm not sure.

If your NAS can export iSCSI linux is perfectly capable of using it (of course it also works the other way around). I would advise you to add an additional NIC to your server for dedicated I/O transport for the iSCSI network. Saves you a lot of headache in the long run for the cost of a cheap Gb NIC.

At the moment the Amahi development is more geared towards enabling apps and other functionality. You can always put in a feature request in the suggestions section of the forum. That it's not available now also doesn't mean it won't be available forever. And of course you're also open to figuring it out yourself and sharing it with the community.