Wireless Network

Sorry for the recent deluge of threads...

I was planning on buying a cheap wireless router to set up a network. I realized that in fact I could do this for free by using the Internet Sharing feature in OSX (you learn something new every day!) - the machine I'd use serves files 24/7 so I have no gripes about having to leave a computer turned on etc.

Only problem is that only WEP security is supported - in a building full of Computer Science students and engineers I don't think this would be terribly effective!

Does anyone know of any ways I can limit the connection to just a few select devices? I'm a complete beginner to networking so I'm not sure how the topography would work. The server is connected via ethernet to the university network - I assume all devices connected to my server would be on a separate network, of which the outbound traffic would be routed through and assume the IP address of the server? I was thinking of a combination of the hosts file and the firewall to limit access - but dunno how this would work with DHCP on the server.

Also, the OSX firewall seems to be pretty limited - anything like IPtables I could use?


Even better, does anyone know of a piece of software with similar functionality to a custom router firmware such as Tomato, OpenWRT etc.?

Many thanks.