Hmm, What to do with Old G3??

[alexcooke]

I have an old G3 Blue & White sitting around at home, that a friend lent me, and doesn't want back anytime soon.

I was thinking about using it as a firewall (wouldn't have a clue how to do it though - very new to Macs) or something, maybe just a computer that sits on the router doing something, but I don't know what.

Any ideas?

AC -x0x-

 

[gr8tfly]

I have one running 10.2 Server. It's been 24/7 for something going on 4 years (except when we have a major power outage). It's configured with 2 enet cards and is my router/firewall, email server, DNS, printer server and web (Apache) server. One of these days, I'll pick up Panther, mostly for the improved Mail and remote management tools.

It replaced a Linux box, so I was actually able to migrate stuff like the DNS and Apache configurations.

It sits in our linen closet, running headless. 99% of the time I can manage it remotely with either a SSH session in terminal, or one of the configuration tools.

You could also use if for general file storage and backup, or maybe have iTunes running off it.

Hope you find some good use for it - they have more life left in 'em.

edit: Sorry I got into the server info with so much detail - hope it wasn't too overwhelming. The easiest thing to setup would be file sharing. It's pretty much just turning on one thing in the System Preferences>Sharing panel.

 

[alexcooke]

I have one running 10.2 Server. It's been 24/7 for something going on 4 years (except when we have a major power outage). It's configured with 2 enet cards and is my router/firewall, email server, DNS, printer server and web (Apache) server. One of these days, I'll pick up Panther, mostly for the improved Mail and remote management tools.

It replaced a Linux box, so I was actually able to migrate stuff like the DNS and Apache configurations.

It sits in our linen closet, running headless. 99% of the time I can manage it remotely with either a SSH session in terminal, or one of the configuration tools.

You could also use if for general file storage and backup, or maybe have iTunes running off it.

Hope you find some good use for it - they have more life left in 'em.

edit: Sorry I got into the server info with so much detail - hope it wasn't too overwhelming. The easiest thing to setup would be file sharing. It's pretty much just turning on one thing in the System Preferences>Sharing panel.

Ahh ok. I was thinking about maybe using it to Remote Desktop too. I haven't done that before, and would be ko0l (this one would be running headless too). Just doing that would be a start...

AC -x0x-

 

[gr8tfly]

Just found this recently: Apple Remote Desktop in 10.4 supports VNC, letting you use one of the nice, free, clients. It's enabled in the System>Preferences>Sharing pane. With it selected in list, go to "Access Priviledges..." and turn on the VNC viewer option. Seems to work fine, using "Chicken-of-the-VNC" client.

 

[alexcooke]

Oh awesome. Thanks.

Any others ideas, hints or suggestions of what to do with it. I am a computer science student so have good knowledge using a PC, just not a Mac... YET...

AC -x0x-