C:\LINUX\HOMERO~1>type debian~1.htm

Debian Potato on a 486 Before the Real Router Swap

Now the DSL line is finally really there.

The modem LED is not blinking anymore. It is stable. This alone already changes the whole feeling in the room. For years that modem was almost decoration with hope inside. Now it is actually the uplink.

The speed is T-DSL 768/128. For me after ISDN it feels very fast. Web pages are suddenly there. Bigger downloads are no longer some project planning. The line is just there all the time. No dial on demand. No waiting for the first click. No listening if the ISDN side comes up. It is honestly a little bit fantastic.

And exactly because now the line is stable, I make the next big move: I prepare the router migration to Debian.

Why I want Debian on this machine

SuSE was important for me to start. Without SuSE 5.3 maybe I would not have started at that point. YaST helped, the docs were okay, and for the first ISDN phase it was practical.

But after some time I notice that what I really like is the direct config file side. I want less distribution magic, more plain files, more package control in a way that feels simple and honest. Also many people around me speak good things about Debian, and I like the whole idea that I can install a very small base and then only add what I really need.

So I decide: the router should move to Debian. But I do not touch the production router first. I am maybe stubborn, but not that stupid.

Three floppies and a network

The install is very nice in a nerd way. No CD install. No glossy thing. Just floppies and network.

For Potato I use three 1.44 MB floppies:

• rescue
• root
• driver

I use the compact boot flavor because it already has the common network cards I need. That means I can boot the machine, get network on it, and pull the rest directly from a Debian mirror through the internet.

This is one of these moments where the technology itself already feels good. The install method is small and direct. It matches what I want the router to be.

The target machine for the first Debian install is not the Cyrix router. It is a spare 486 I have lying around. Slow, but enough for testing. I want the whole new system ready somewhere else before I touch the real edge machine.

The 486 boots from floppy, asks the normal questions, then I configure the network and point it to a mirror. The packages come over DSL. This is maybe the first time where I really feel the DSL in a practical admin task: network installation is not painful anymore. It is still not super fast, but it is completely realistic.

First priority: does DSL work on the 486?

Before I care about LAN services, before DNS, before any comfort stuff, I want one proof: can this new Debian box take the DSL cable, boot, and come back with internet?

So after the base install and the PPPoE setup I take the DSL cable and put it into the 486 test machine. Then reboot.

This reboot test is important for me. A lot of things work once when you configured them half by hand in a hurry. I want to know if it survives a cold start and comes back alone.

It does.

The 486 boots, PPPoE comes up, the route is there, internet works. I reboot one more time because I do not trust success if I only saw it once. Same result. At that moment I know the migration is realistic.

The Potato package set I use

I keep it simple. This is a router, not a kitchen sink.

For the local infrastructure I install these important things:

• bind8 (BIND 8.2.3)
• dhcpd from ISC DHCP 2.0
• Squid 2.2
• the PPPoE package/tools
• normal network admin tools

For the firewall I stay with ipchains because Potato is still kernel 2.2 land for me. iptables is not the topic here yet.

This is okay. The line is DSL now, but the firewall story is still 2.2 generation. I do not mind. First I want a stable router. The newer firewall framework can wait.

The detailed LAN-service part became its own small project already, so I write that separately: DHCP, bind8, Squid, Adzapper, and the annoying testing while the old router is still alive on the same LAN. That part is not hard in one big dramatic way. It is hard in fifteen little annoying ways.

So for this note I keep the focus on the migration shape itself:

• Debian install by floppy and network
• DSL check on the 486
• package set ready
• disk prepared for the real box

Why I am doing the disk swap instead of just swapping machines

The final plan is simple: when all is done on the 486, I take that disk and put it into the real router box, the Cyrix Cx133.

The reason is practical. The Cyrix box is the better final hardware. More RAM. Better fit for Squid and general comfort. The 486 is only the preparation table.

So the 486 is not the new router. It is the place where the new router disk is born.

I like this method because it keeps the dangerous experimentation away from the live edge machine. The production router can keep running until the new disk is ready. Only then do I touch the real box.

I think this is maybe the first time I do a migration in a way that feels half-professional.

The part which still decides everything is whether the LAN services are really boring enough. DSL on the 486 is only the first proof. The second proof is whether clients get addresses, names resolve, and the proxy does not behave stupidly. If that part is still shaky, then the disk stays in the 486 for more testing.

Next step is then the real swap. If all goes well, Debian boots in the Cyrix box and nobody in the LAN notices more than one short outage.