iptables newbie...

payam · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 30 Jun 2003 Posts: 145

I have 2 questions regarding iptables:

does iptables act like, say, zonealarm, or does it turn a computer with two network cards into a router (or, perhaps both?)

does one run iptables on a desktop machine with a public ip (and subsequently, where is the best place to get info on how to set up such a scheme)?

thanks.
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Liathus · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2003 11:33 pm Post subject:

while any linux machine with two network cards can be a router (thanks to the kernel), netfilter adds the capabilities for it to do things such as NAT. I assume this is what you are refering to as it will allow someone with 1 real ip address to share internet resources with multiple private addresses.

I suggest you do some reading on http://www.netfilter.org. They have lots of great stuff to get you going. You can run netfilter on you desktop if you wish.

A better solution IMHO would be to find a older system (pentium 100mhz or so) and use it as a dedicated firewall. You might want to check out smoothwall if you dont want to compile for a long time on a slow machine :)

http://www.smoothwall.org