** A little more than 10% ECCp gain by removing ZoneAlarm...Also...SETI..not sure now! ?

[Engineer]

WOW....I was having trouble on the Dual 1.4GHz TBird system with ZoneAlarm...so I removed it. Looking at taskmanager, it really never used over a few seconds of CPU time per day, but with it's removal, I've gained a 10%+ improvement in ECCp. Went from 300+- per day to almost 340+- per day! :Q

I remember the same with RC5...not sure about SETI. I have a router and feel somewhat secure, but I just don't know. 10% gain vs. a little less security...especially with all the Windows flaws!

/me goes to think about it....

SETI...see later post....may have been the reboot more than removing ZA.....


Also, just to test...removed it from my 1GHz TBird rig running SETI...will check the averages later this week!

USS Wildcat 1000 - The Federation 3.38 3 3 6h45m 6h24m 12

The bold is the average...PC133 SDRAM on an A7V board. Win2k. We'll see without ZA what happens!

 

[Migroo]

Re: Security worries

This is particularly useful for many DC'ers as I bet most of you have a spare Pentium 166 or something that isnt being used (or wouldnt be missed)

Checkout SmoothWall.org. SmoothWall is a firewall/router besed on Linux that creates a hardened internet firewall device, turning a server, workstation or reduntant PC into a replacement for a hardware firewall router often costing several thousands of dollars. (Taken in part from their website..)

I have ADSL and have put a SmoothWall between our ADSL modem and our network. It works extremely well and the extensive facilities give you excellent control.

Give it a look! No more security worries. The GPL version is free and the Corporate Server version is available for a good price.

 

[Postman]

On a related note, if you're using Ipaq with USB cradle, check your task manager while Ipaq is in the cradle. Mine eats ~10% CPU as long as the thing is attached. Weird but I haven't found any fix for it.

 

[Robor]

I've had problems with every system I've installed Zone Alarm on. I like the idea and the protection but it's not worth the instability.

I've got a P2-266 at home. I'll have to check out that SmoothWall. Maybe I'll even learn something.

Thanks Migroo!

 

[Migroo]

No problem Rob!

If you need any help or have any questions then feel free to PM me, I've quite a bit of experience with these as we sometimes sell PCs with the commercial version of SmoothWall as part of a consultancy.

You will need a 486 or upwards with two NICs (one ethernet IN (Red side, or unsecure) and one ethernet OUT (known as Green or secure). My P166 handles traffic from around 6 to 10 machines and can give us the full performance of our ADSL line - ie: it has not become the bottleneck.

Good luck!

(Installation is pretty easy, and the system is administored via network, so as soon as installation is finished you do not need a monitor, vid card, keyboard or mouse!)

 

[joinT]

I don't suppose SmoothWall works from a bootable floppy or something similar?

 

[Robor]

Thanks for the offer! I hope I don't have to but I may take you up on it.

I will definetely check it out. During a routine check of my startup stuff I found a backdoor trojan on my system last week. Yeah, I know, an IT admin with a backdoor on his system? Shameful! I guess I should turn Norton's "auto-protect" on as well.

 

[RaySun2Be]

I've used ZoneAlarm for a long time, no problems except with ICS. Solved that by getting a Linksys router. Although I may want to with smoothwall, as the free version of ZoneAlarm doesn't allow some back and forth communications that I need without lowering the firewall setting.

 

[Migroo]

OK well I'll be on to check PMs and this thread if help is needed

Just thought it may be useful to some people with multiple machines to protect and who already had a LAN in place.

 

[RaySun2Be]

Originally posted by: joinT
I don't suppose SmoothWall works from a bootable floppy or something similar?

JoinT,
You might check out Linux Router Project which can run off floppy. It's a router, which may have rudimentary firewall protection (ie NAT)

Ray

 

[Migroo]

SmoothWall can boot (load the installer) from floppy, CD or via LAN, but it does require a hard drive (500mb will do (or smaller, just never tried)) to be installed in the system.

As Ray said I'm sure LRP will suit you better

 

[Postman]

Or my old favourite, Freesco.

 

[RaySun2Be]

Originally posted by: Postman
Or my old favourite, Freesco.

Oh yeah, I think that is the one I was actually thinking about.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: RaySun2Be
I've used ZoneAlarm for a long time, no problems except with ICS. Solved that by getting a Linksys router. Although I may want to with smoothwall, as the free version of ZoneAlarm doesn't allow some back and forth communications that I need without lowering the firewall setting.

ICS is what caused the instability on mine. Everything was fine until I told ZA that the machine was an ICS gateway and any internal machine tried to access the 'net through it. As soon as that happened it just froze. No error, no BSOD, just a total lock (no response from KB or mouse). I uninstalled ZA and never had another problem.

 

[Engineer]

Maybe just a coincidence, but without ZA on my daughters rig, it finished a WU AR 1.8 in about 5:56 (h:m). It had finished two WU's (2.8 and 7.8 AR) the day before in 6:56 (h:m). If this is true...and based on looking at other WU times, it may be...then it knocked 1 hour off by ditching ZA. I know we need security, but we need low CPU percentage security!

Good Luck all...I think I'll tweak my router "rules" and let it slide. (Netgear RT314)

 

[Engineer]

Updated again...

With ZoneAlarm: .745 AR (7:45 h:m)

Without ZoneAlarm: .721 AR (6:33 h:m)

Another hour+ improvement.....I'm sorta perplexed that a program that can take up so few CPU seconds (according to taskmanager) can steal so much from SETI!

Also, the ECCp does indeed show a 10% + improvement...and this is on a dual system...so it may be more with a single CPU system.

Good Luck...and as usual...

more....more....more! :Q

 

[ColinP]

This is really interesting, were you running the latest version of ZA ?

It will take a bit of messing around / re-arrranging to get my Linux box set up as my router but it might be worth it..

cheers,

Col

 

[Engineer]

ColinP,

The ECCp was running the latest version...the SETI PC was one generation behind.

 

[nagger]

I've been witnessing a 95% decrease in production since I installed Warcraft 3 on my puter

Anyone has any idea on how to solve this problem?

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: nagger
I've been witnessing a 95% decrease in production since I installed Warcraft 3 on my puter

Anyone has any idea on how to solve this problem?

Build another computer to counteract the 95% drop!




Back On Topic (me, yeah right! ) i found out that while i was away over the weekend, my puter decided that Zone Alarm Pro needed 95% CPU usage on an 1800+ @ 1686MHz, and had lost nearly 3-4 WUs.

Also my average time without ZAP is around 3:20, previously was 3:40 with ZAP running! :Q


Must find better firewall to put on computers!

 

[merlocka]

OK guys, n00b alert here.

I'm in the process of setting up my new home office. I just finished the basement and I'm wiring it up for my work PC's, play PC's and (of course) my DC PC's.

I've been using a Linksys for all my DHCP / NATS needs, I like it because I just plug it in and go. After looking at the smoothwall and Freesco pages, one question has popped into my mind...

How secure are hardware NATS routers like the Linksys or SMC Barricade (in their defualt config, I don't think I change anything other than the password)?

Is there a real concern about these things? I use a soft VPN for work stuff, but I'm no windows expert and my work PC and home PC's are networked so I'm worried that if there is someone who can see past the HW router, getting into my work laptop might be a piece of cake after that.

Or let me ask it this way, do all you networking-savvy IT guys use a Linux-based PC router rather than a HW router?

 

[Engineer]

Another WU compare:

.404 AR with ZA: 7:48 (h:m)

.411 AR without ZA: 6:43 (h:m)

Another hour improvement....remember, this is on an older PC (1GHz ) with SDRAM (256M) and Win2k SP2 (not SP3 yet). It was also running the previous generation ZA...although I didn't notice a difference in the Dual system when I upgraded ZA...only when I removed it.

Must find better firewall....too much difference!

Good Luck

 

[zodder]

I have an old PP-200 that might just fit the bill for this. Hmm.......

 

[Confused]

Hrm i might be able to dig out an old 233, but might need to find psu for it...

 

[Ken g6]

In general it's good to avoid running any taskbar thingies with S@H. Or any other programs for that matter (so kill this browser now! ) The problem is that SETI needs the entire L2 cache and then some, but any other running program must also be swapped into the L2 and L1 caches on a regular basis. Then SETI must be swapped back when it's done, even if it had nothing to do.

So I only use ZA when I'm online, since I have a dial-up.