Gateway Setup

[Rocco8888]

Okay newbie question. I need to configure a gateway box for my company. I will use it as a gateway for some users and services and a failover gateway for others. I will need to add the following.

Firewall – ability to block and open ports
NAT – I need to route some public IPs to private, one will be through a switch over a router to another network.
Unlimited internet access to a group of internal IP addresses.
A couple of static routes

My question is what is the best flavor of Linux to use that is the most stable and easiest to configure? I took the distro test and they recommend OpenSuSE so I am posting it here but I do not know if OpenSuSe is the best for this. Also please let me know of any links or posts on how to configure this. I am sure I can search the forums for each process but if anyone has shortcuts I am all for it.

Thanks in advance.

[gogalthorp]

All Distros will do what you want. It is a matter of taste and easy of configuration. All the leading distros are pretty easy to configure. So it is a matter of taste ie how comfortable you are with the configuration interface.

[HROAdmin26]

Firewall – ability to block and open ports [IPTABLES]
NAT – I need to route some public IPs to private, one will be through a switch over a router to another network. [IPTABLES]
Unlimited internet access to a group of internal IP addresses. [IPTABLES]
A couple of static routes [ROUTE ADD]

As already mentioned, nothing above requires any special distro. IPTables comes on almost any distro and changing routes is a normal networking ability.

Some have "nicer" interfaces for managing them.

ClarkConnect

IPCop

EBox

Wikipedia - List of Firewall/Router Distros

[Rocco8888]

Thanks for the help. This will get me on my way.