Server 2003 as a Internet gateway.


Funny story, a few weeks ago I was going through a few boxes, helping a friend sort out one of this actions madness spends. What made me jump was seeing four retail boxes of server 2003 enterprise (unopened!?), there was no R2 or a service pack, these where really old, there was also Windows 2000 pro OEM, Windows XP retail and Vista upgrade. We found seven opened boxes of the same server version, that where used on nine P3 servers he had picked up. (They all came from the same lot)
Anyway I got one copy of server and man what find.

Anyway I was looking into setting up a Linux gateway/firewall, but because I want to use a USB 3G modem, it was proving to be a pain in the ass setting it up. Ding! 2003, well I have a laptop with Wifi (Atheros), one on-board Land, one PCMCIA LAN and two USB ports, not bad for a P3 laptop.

Now I do plan to install a free anti-virus and firewall, but under Server 2003 is there a way to block websites, I have tried the hosts file in Windows XP, sadly even after a reboot the websites still loaded (I did copy and past and checked what was in the hosts files). Would it be better using the firewall?

Also I need to have a WLAN, so I was hope to know how others found Server 2003 as a Access Point.

So I would have two WAN at anyone time, 3G and Lan PCMCIA, both Lan on-board and Wlan would need to be bridged; as with any Access point. Since I haven't done anything with bridging under windows, do I need to open any ports to allow all traffic?