Re: Deb3.0 - Enabling NAT in kernel?

[Johan Ehnberg]

howdy.

I'm using an old Toshiba 200CDS laptop with 48 megs of RAM
and a 4 gig HD. (I'm using a laptop specifcally so this
router will run silently with no buzzing fans.)

For this use, I strongly suggest you buy some old non-laptop computer. A P/100 is more than enough, and they are very silent (or can be modified to be). I use a tweaked HP Vectra for this, it has been running 24/7 for years. With a laptop you might run into some serious heat problems. But your choice.

So far I've got the 100mbit PC-Card working and seeing the
other machines on the network, and ppp can dial out in
demand mode, but the next steps seem very vague. I don't
know what I'm supposed to do to make NAT function.

The IP-MASQUERADE-Howto tells you exactly what to do. Find it at www.tldp.org. It's not difficult. And you can make the machine your firewall at the same time. (MASQ by itself already works as disguise firewall).

There's something in dselect called "ipmasq", but it does
not work. It seems to install fine, but when it runs I get
an error that says "IP masquerade not enabled in the kernel"
which is odd because I thought that was supposed to be
automatically available in newer kernels.

I suggest you compile your own kernel for this use, as you can get some fun functionality to play with. The Howto tells you more. But afaik there should be MASQ in the default kernels. Have you installed a new kernel with dselect (or any other way) or are you still using the original one? I recommend a 2.4 kernel as it is easier to set up for your task. But some protocols don't work with 2.4 yet, look in the Howto for an updated list. You probably won't use them anyway :=).

I've been doing a variety of web searches, trying to figure
out how to turn on NAT support, but I am not finding
anything specific to Debian 3.0 that explains the process.
For example, a Google search on "IP masquerade not enabled
in the kernel" turns up absolutely nothing.

What am I supposed to be doing next to make it work?

I'd try a new 2.4 kernel or compile it myself using make-kpkg (you'll need kernel-source, kernel-package and probably ncurses for 'make menuconfig'). Read the Howto and you'll have it working in a few hours, and at the same time you'll understand how it works.

I hope I answered your questions :=).

hth,
/johan

--
Johan Ehnberg
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Windows? No... I don't think so."


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]