Turn an old computer into an access point

Turn an old computer into an access point Picture 1 Network administration - If there are old computers that are not in use, do not rush to discard these computers wastefully, but use them to do some pretty useful things. In this article we will introduce you to five suggestions for turning these old computers into useful devices for testing, routing, security, etc.

1. Install Ubuntu or other distributions for Linux testing

If you have never used operating systems outside of Windows, you can now explore the world of free and open source operating systems by installing Ubuntu. Within an hour, you can download and install the Ubuntu operating system, or one of thousands of other distributions on your old computer. You can even test it before installing anything on your hard drive, using the live CD mode of some distributions.

Today Ubuntu has become very popular, especially for new Linux users. "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "I can be myself thanks to the people around", so its mission and philosophy of life are better with the world of calculation.

When you boot into a desktop version of Linux you will see that, although it has many differences, the operating system still has the same main functions as Windows. There is still the Start menu - better organized in Windows - and icons on the desktop. Ordinary users can edit documents, browse the web and perform other basic tasks.

The biggest advantage is that you have access to hundreds of thousands of free apps. Most distributions are available to everyone, including: office software, email clients, calendars, web browsers, photo editors, and .

With additional applications, you can use Package Manager to search and install other software listed in the distribution repository; or download programs directly from the developer's site and build them yourself.

Linux is indeed an operating system for many network devices and computers. The rest of the ideas in this article also use software for Linux.

2. Turn into a router with RouterOS or ZeroShell

You absolutely can own advanced network features, such as features found in Cisco devices, with some small attempts. Linux operating systems can turn your old computer into a multi-purpose LAN server. Use it to replace the router by running a firewall for the network and sharing Internet access (with NAT). You can even connect offices together with a VPN server and client, providing public access by configuring the lock port, or using it to balance and automate failover. The features and solutions here are endless.

The two projects you need to get these advanced features are RouterOS and ZeroShell. ZeroShell is a free tool and can be run from a CD with a configuration saved to a hard drive or USB drive. After the minimum configuration at the console, you can administer it through the web browser on a remote computer. RouterOS has been around for a long time and is highly appreciated by many people. It can install directly to a drive and has multiple configuration interfaces, including web interface and GUI application.

3. Create a LAN file server using FreeNAS

If you do multiple file sharing actions on the network, you can use the Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution instead of having to create basic shares with Windows. You may have noticed that some NAS (basically small computers) are not cheap, not only that, but also you have to buy additional hard drives. However, you can create your own NAS by installing a NAS server based on FreeBSD, FreeNAS, and old PCs.

Using a NAS server means you don't have to worry about the remaining PCs having to queue to access Windows shares. Using FreeNAS will give you a central storage location and will always be accessible. It also provides control and ease of sharing. You can save user details and verify users. If you use Windows shares, you'll have to duplicate each user account on computers to get the same protection for shares.

Like other NAS servers, FreeNAS gives you Recycle bin support. If you delete a file from Windows sharing, it will disappear permanently. However, if you delete a file from the FreeNAS share, it will be included in the Recycle bin and you can restore it if necessary.

FreeNAS supports various sharing protocols: CIFS (SMB / samba) for Windows, NFS for Linux / Uniux, and AFP for Mac OS X. Supports FTP, RSYNC and iSCSI. There's even an iTunes / DAAP server, so you can share files between your iPods. In addition FreeNAS is also featured by an attached BitTorrent server.

4. Run Web, Email, FTP servers and other servers with Linux

Although the price for web hosting can be quite affordable, you may still want to host your own website. It can also be very useful to deploy an intranet or to work with special applications. Besides, you can host other services, such as email server with POP3 and SMTP, file access with FTP server or database access using MySQL server.

The two main web servers, the Apache HTTP server for Linux and Microsoft's IIS server (available in professional versions of Windows) are really free to use.

When installing Apache, you can only install the web server application or install web server software distribution. When using Apache, it is best to install a server package. Apache2Triad is a great package for Windows. If using Linux, you can include the LAMP group when installing Ubuntu Server Edition.

5. Turn into a hotspot with ZoneCD

Do you want to provide wireless Internet access to your customers but don't want to spend a lot of money to invest in a hotspot gateway? If there are old computers, you can create Wi-Fi hotspots using the ZoneCD tool from PublicIP.

ZoneCD is a live CD for Linux that provides Wi-Fi authentication and web content filtering. It boots directly from the disk and there are no changes to the hard drive. Requires only at least 128MB of RAM, CD-ROM drive and floppy drive or USB drive to store configuration. In addition, there are two Ethernet cards. One to plug into the Internet and one to plug in a wireless router or AP.