DHCP server help.

[aaronf]

Ok, would like to first say I'm really new at this.

With that said,

I have a debian box that I'm trying my best to set it up as a DHCP server. I have two network cards installed. The onboard card is for the internet line coming in, and the second card I want to go out to a switch so that mulitple computers can connect. I have followed 20 or so online help threads and still have not got it to work properly. I must be getting close because I can sometimes get skype to work on my desktop while plugged into the switch that the debian box is plugged into. I'm almost to the point of giving up and just buying a router to use as the dhcp server and have the linux box just plugged into the switch for samba access. I'm not sure what kind of info is needed for help, but I will provide anything at this point if someone asks for it.

Linux is a great OS, but I have a lot of learning ahead of me. My only experiance with it is the current machine I'm trying to build, 28 years old and just now trying out linux.

[aaronf]

just trying to figure out why I cannot get internet access on computers connected to the switch that is connected to eth1 on the debian box. The computers get ip addresses and I've had Skype sometimes on and off, but never been able to get webpages to come up. When I plug my vista desktop into the switch it shows a connection, but says local only. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions.

[iwanabeguru]

you need set up forwarding on the debian box which share the internet connection

try this
as root

#>echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
#>iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o eth1 -j ACCEPT
#>iptables -A FORWARD -i eth1 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT
#>iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

EDIT:
i forgot something
the eth0 interface connected to the internet

[aaronf]

I will try this as soon as I get home. I hope your suggestion works and thanks for taking the time to help me, I'm about ready to pull my hair out. I will try and save me results from now on so that I may give a better idea of my problems.

I stayed up till 2am trying to get that thing workin. I followed several online walkthrus that showed how to setup Iptables with Webmin. I beleive I did the commands you suggested thru Webmin's Linux Firewall. When I would restart the network, eth0 would not start. I also found a complete walkthru with Shorewall firewall. I followed it to the T, and when I tried to start the Shorewall, it had errors talking about Traffic Shaping, Iptables, and somthing called Mingle or something like that was not in the Kernel.

[iwanabeguru]

for setting up the iptables trough a gui use "firestarter"
or you can write a set up script

[aaronf]

I think I have figured out part of the problem, didn't have full NAT selected in the build of the kernel. I'm redoing the kernel to include that and also something called mingling as requested by shorewall firewall. Hopefully everything will be ok after that.