[bench123]

I am looking for Linux networking antivirus, spyware detector, and possibly internet filtering software as well. I am a newbie to Linux, but not computers in general. I work for a small school with about 100 students. We have about 25 to 30 computers in the school. We run Windows 98 and 2000. I am going to set up users and roaming profiles with a Linux Samba server.

My real question is two fold. Can I set up the Linux server to provide internet connection with the rest of the computers (ie, like Windows Internet Connection Sharing), so that all internet traffic coming to my network could get filtered (antivirus, spyware protector, etc) at that one computer? I want to know if it is possible to avoid having to have each computer with its own antivirus software, etc. And if this is possible, do you know of where I can get the software? (either free or at a price)

Thanks for your help!
Bench123

[dago]

I hope someone can give you a better answer than me, but consider it as a start point.

- Connection sharing _ for sure, Linux is done for that, no other OS has better networking features as linux. Here you have 'iptables' then search the net for info or try 'man iptables'. A different tool should be 'iproute2' I guess 'man iproute2' can provide some info.
The best resource is a doc named "Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO". Search the net, it's available as PDF.

- About the filtering, protection, etc _ that's limited since anything against spywares and email virus are not efficient outside the target machine. There is a software named 'snort' http://www.snort.org/ which is an IDS software, it could help identifying that are problems but not filtering as a omnipresent antivirus.
Perhaps someone else can tell you different -- I'll be glad to know it too.

- Antivirus _ Linux has little trouble with virus and the tools are limited. My suggestions
Mail scanning: http://www.clamav.net/
System scanning: check this out http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/in...topic=4296&hl=
Spam: http://spamassassin.apache.org/

[lynch]

You seem to be on the right track with samba. For a proxy server, look into Squid; for a mail server, there is Postfix and Qmail.
HTH
lynch

[tsunam]

Can't go wrong with what lynch, and dago said. 90% of linux servers that do the same exact thing as you just wanted to do will run clanav, spamassassin, apache if you want the kids to have a web design class . Squid is just helpful for at a minimum speeding up browsing...Heck I know people who run their own proxy's on single system homes to make it that much faster.

[bench123]

Many thanks guys for contributing. You have given me a very good starting point. Thanks again!

[Squashman]

You still have to have Antivirus on the Desktop! If you don't you are just asking for trouble.

[knurd]

For antivirus on Linux try F-Prot. They have a free workstation version, which I run on my Samba server at home.
Setup your cron jobs to scan your shares and download updates, you won't have to worry about it.