[mdlug] Routing Situation - Suggestions/Opinions

[Robert Adkins II]

We recently upgraded the DSL service at the office to essentially twice as
fast as it used to be. Unfortunately, our older DSL Router isn't capable of
going that fast. Luckily, they sent us a new one... and it is a POS. It is
incpabable of performing half the routing/firewalling of the older/slower
router.
 
For example, I need only our email server and two other internal IP
Addresses to have "direct" access to the Internet and all other systems to
be forced into going through the proxy server. The options on the new
Netopia router include allowing me to point external ports to internal
addresses, but otherwise everything on the inside has full, direct (and
speedy!) access to the wild, wild, west.
 
Here's my thoughts:
 
1. Pickup a good Cable Internet Router that can be upgraded with dd-wrt or
OpenWrt
 
2. Replace the firmware with one of the above mentioned types.
 
3. Place the Upgraded Cable Modem in between the network and the Netopia
POS, configure the routing we need and away we go.
 
Is this is an easily workable plan? 
 
Thanks,
Rob