Coyote Linux

Coyote Linux is a small distribution of Linux, including the operating system and the necessary services for a firewall/router, intended for easy NAT sharing of an internet connection with a single IP address among many computers on a local network, using spare "commodity" hardware. The project was originally started in 1998 to provide a very simple way of creating a Linux-based firewall system for systems with broad-band Internet connections. Initial versions of Coyote Linux had both a Microsoft Windows program and a set of shell scripts for Linux to create the firewall boot-disk.

In October 2005, the Coyote Linux format switched from using a 1.44MB floppy to requiring a small IDE hard drive or flash device. At the time this change was made, the original floppy-based version was forked into the project "BrazilFW Firewall and Router". The new releases of Coyote Linux were based in Vortech Consulting's "Wolverine Firewall and VPN Server", offering a basic subset of the features present in Wolverine.

Coyote Linux was not maintained between January 2007 and December 2008 while the developing company and its author worked on other projects. Work has resumed on Coyote Linux as of January 2009. The new versions of Coyote Linux make use of the OpenEmbedded and Mono (software) projects as a basis for development.