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Installation
But since I wanted to roll my own, I grabbed an older HP/Compaq Business Desktop small form-factor model with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 1 GB of RAM and onboard Intel 10/100 NIC. I dug through my chest full of parts to dig up a second PCI NIC.
I booted from the CDROM and was quickly impressed by the setup routine. No boring monochrome screen like other *nix distros! The splash screens for this setup made me think more of building a server from an HP SmartStart CD; even fancier than that.
You are presented with a page that looks like a registration page, asking you how many PCs will it protect, contact info, etc. I hesitated at first, worried about getting sold to some spam mailing list. But it was unwarranted. The email part is tied in with your "Library" if you wish to purchase additional components.
After finishing the setup, which also includes a quick connection wizard, I rebooted and was presented with the standard screen. Unlike many other Linux distros, Untangle allows you to manage it right from the computer you installed it on, via a Java-based utility.
Note: You can use this Live GUI preview to explore more of the Untangle's features. It's a 7 MB download that requires Java installed on your local machine.
Untangle uses the interface model of an equipment rack, into which you install applications (nodes) that implement different networking functions. The Library column on the left side of the screen contains the Commercial Add-ons that can be purchased and downloaded for use in your Untangle installation. The next tab is called My Apps, which contains the open source applications that can be downloaded (no charge) to your Untangle box. The space on the right is the "Rack".
Once nodes are installed, they appear in the Rack (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Untangle Rack with installed Nodes
The third Config tab allows you to manage configuration of some of the rack components through a browser interface called Alpaca (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Untangle Config Tab
For example, the Networking configuration brings you to some of the features you’d see on common home grade routers such as Port Forwarding, WAN and LAN Interface configuration, DHCP, DNS, Packet Filter, Routes, etc.
Figure 3: Networking Port Forwards
Each node within your rack can be expanded to fine tune settings within the node. For example, the Spyware Blocker controls in Figure 4 allow you to get fairly granular with setting exceptions, blocking ActiveX, etc.
Figure 4: Spyware Blocker Settings
User reviews
Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
Untangle
I have used many of the small routers that people buy at the stores but have always had problems with them because at different times they always drop all connections. After doing some investigating I have found that this is usually caused by high traffic volumes filling up the buffer inside the router. After having so many problems I decided to use a computer for my router instead. At first I setup my own but did not have much in the way of filtering and I never setup DNS or DHCP on it. Then I found Untangle. I downloaded it and burned it to a CD then put the disk in the drive of the computer I was setting up. I booted the computer from the CD, answered a few simple questions like which network port is external and which one is internal, and I had a working router. I then went to the virtual rack and installed the opensource pack and I had all of the filtering that I wanted already installed and configured.
To run Untangle correctly you do need a much more powerful system than I thought you would need but you can still generally get away with an old system that you are not using any more. It is suggested that you have at least 1 GB of RAM and you need at least 2 network cards.
I ran into very occasional dropping of connections like the store bought routers but found that the issue was the on board network cards that I had and replaced them with add-on cards and have not had any other issues. I even setup one at my parent's house and one at my house and setup a VPN connection between them using the VPN setup in Untangle. This is something that I would recommend for any one with a spare computer that they can setup for this and I would suggest to any small business that they use this.
Untangle is very powerful and has some of the best filtering I have come across without using dedicated hardware firewall products. I have not tested it to see how well it scales but I do know that for most small to medium sized businesses it should not be a problem especially with some of the paid upgrades.
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