Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Jhommer Oblego wrote:

> Hi! I setup a small LAN and want BL2 to act as
> internet gateway to share internet connection across
> the LAN. BL2 will be install to AMD 5x86 133Mhz, 32MB
> RAM and 340M HDD. may question is what are the
> additional modules required to make BL2 share the
> internet access to other computer across the LAN?
> please guide me how to do it. I'm new to linux.
>
I think it's a bit complicated.  I think you'd need to get the kernel to
do NAT (network address translation) and IP masquerading.  I think the BL2
kernel uses iptables to do this, so there's probably some iptables
configuration file that would need to be set up and the kernel would need
to load it on bootup.  That's what I recall from the little bit of reading
I did on the subject.  Steven could say more precisely what's involved.
But what you might want to do is look into one of the many Linux mini
distros (LRP [Linux Router Project], Freesco, Smoothwall) that are
actually made to do what you want.  They come preconfigured for NAT'ing
and IP masquerading.  I tried Freesco and it works great: pretty simple
setup and you're sharing your 'net connection, and with good firewall
protection.  It runs on UMSDOS, so if you want something that runs on a
native Linux file system, look at the LRP stuff or Smoothwall.
Clarkconnect and ESmith are a couple of others.  These are all said to
run well on older hardware such as yours.  I think maybe Steven
would agree that a preconfigured router/gateway/firewall distro is going
to be better - especially for someone new to Linux - than trying to get
BL2 to do this.  But I'll let him speak for himself now :)

James