Hoping for some help here:
I previously had the following setup within my network at my residence. 1
Linux box w/ 2 NIC cards. 1 connected to the DSL modem, and 1 to a HUB
where other computers throughout the house are connected. I configured NIC
1 for the IP address given to me by my DSL provider, and configured the
other NIC for the private network IP range 196.168.x.x. Next I configured
IP Forwarding and Masquerading, and alas had everything set up and working
perfectly.
Some online games won't allow duplicate IP addresses to be seen on the game
server, and as all computers within my private net were sharing the 1 IP
address provided by the DSL provider, only one computer at a time to could
be gaming. I've recently acquired a different DSL package, which gives me 5
static IP address, so I should be able to configure my network as I hoped.
Obviously, I could have just put all computers, and the DSL modem on my HUB
and life would be good from a gaming perspective, however, I would very much
like to have a firewall installed that helps protect against intruders.
Under this scenario, I'd have to install a firewall on each PC to gain some
protection...what a hassle.
What I'd like to do is configure my Linux box like I had before, but replace
the Private network with additional IP's that I gained. I tried setting
this up, but fell short after realizing that Linux acting as a router can't
route unless there are two different networks (IP sets) to route between.
Since all my machines IP's belong to the same network (IP set), I can't
"route" per se.
What I came across were some HOWTO's on bridging+firewall. Essentially the
bridge creates a virtual NIC that binds the two together, and I place the
firewall (IPchains) on this virtual NIC. I configured it, set it up, and
appear to be accomplishing my goal. The firewall stuff is working on every
machine, and of course gaming is now a reality.
In summary, my question is this. Is this the best/only approach I can take
in setting up my environment? Is there a way to accomplish this by setting
up my own route tables? The reason I ask is because when everything is
"idle" on my network, I see blips on the DSL modem about every 3 seconds or
so. I've narrowed it down to the bridge stuff, as I can bring the bridge
down, and the blipping stops. I don't know what is happening, and I don't
believe that the bridge is impacting performance much, still I don't know,
so I thought I'd pose the question to the experts out there.
Thanks in advance,
Mark Wignall
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
