Help needed from a newbie

[Protozoon]

Hi everyone there !

I actually don’t know who to ask for, and whether this forum will be the best place … but I’ll try.

Here is my problem:

1. my network
. I’ve set up (home/office) an Airport network: one Airport Graphite (v1) Base station, the DSL modem connected to the BS, 3 Macs with Airport card
. amongst the Macs, one is dedicated to be a Web / FTP server using Dynamic DNS services
. the other Macs are only surfing on the Web, and exchanging files together

2. my concern
I’ve seen the problem of the lack of security in the Wep protection used in Airport (problem is valid for Airport 40 bits, 128 bits, and apparently for the new Extreme).
So I’d like to:
. be able to protect wireless exchange of data between the Macs
. be able to protect IP packets between the DSL modem and the wireless Macs
. still be able to surf on the web

3. a solution ?
My idea is to secure the wireless exchanges using IPSec.
VaportSec installed on each Mac should enable this.
However, the Macs would then be unable to surf on the Web !
So the new idea is to install a new Mac with an Airport card, and to connect the DSL modem to this new Mac.
The LAN would then be a “private wireless network”, and the “DSL Mac” would share its Internet connexion (on Ethernet port) with other Macs. In addition, the DSL Mac would then do DHCP and NAT for the others.

Question 1: will it work ? I know all exchanges between the DSL Mac and the other Macs will be IPSec protected, including the packets for Web surfing. But will the DSL Mac decrypt these IPSec packets before transmitting them to the DSL modem and vice-versa ? If not, what to do ?
Note I cannot afford to buy a MacOSX Server … so everything is related to Client Jaguars.

Question 2: since a new Mac would cost some bucks, would it be possible to replace it by a regular IPSec compatible router ?
The scheme would then be:
. router connected to DSL modem
. Airport BStation connected to router
. Macs wirelessly connected to the Airport BStation
So will this router decode IPSec protected packets from the Mac to transfer them to the DSL modem (on the Ethernet port) ?
And will the ABS correctly transfer encrypted packets to the router and vice-versa ?

Thanx by advance if you can help …

[Protozoon]

Thanx, I’ll have a look at the links.

The “DSL Mac” solution will still be uneasy to set up.
As far as I know, when using the default “Internet sharing”, the sharing mac (let’s call it the “server”) will act as a DHCP server. Moreover, its own LAN IP will be obtained via BootP.
So:
. client IPs will change on the LAN at each LAN connexion
. server IP will change on the LAN at each DSL connexion

Conclusion: I’d have to make some script for VaporSec to get the relevant IPs on each client and on the server each time something is changing !
And there is no other software router I know for Jaguar which would fit: IpNetShareX is based on natd, thus restricting some protocols I’m using.

Any idea ?

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