On Tue, 2003-12-30 at 20:44, Kevin Brown wrote:
> > I have looked around the net a bit and can not figure what I do and do 
> > not need to know.
> > 
> > I am building a  desktop/ firewall for my girlfriend that has cox. As 
> > her mother hates me I will not have access to the cable modem before I 
> > drop off the computer, and will not have a ton of time to configure the 
> > computer before getting something thrown at me. The computer that I am 
> > giving away will be protecting the rest of the net from the virus ridden 
> > piece of s* that my girlfriend's mom will not let me fix.All I know 
> > about the cable modem is that it is not a router and that it has cat-5 
> > out. I have no experiece with such things so I am hoping that you could 
> > tell me of the ramifications *or point me to a guide*.
> > 
> > Should I do anything special when I install debian? (should I tell it a 
> > bs static ip or what?)
> 
> It will need the DHCP client to get an address from cox (and possibly a DHCP 
> server for the systems in the house).
> 
> > Will I need to find drivers?
> 
> Cable Modems are transparent transeiver devices to convert the cable WAN signals 
> to cat5 ethernet standards.
> 
> > How much time should I assume that I will need to invest to get firewall 
> > builder setup?
> 
> Depends on how secure you want to make it and other needs.  A basic config will 
> need to do NAT and prevent outside systems from getting to or through the debian 
> router otherwise.
> 

I think NAT is a bit much (personal opinion). I have a setup similar to
what you're describing. I have my internal machines using the
firewall/router as a gateway and have ip_forwarding enabled.

Here's a link similar to the how-to I used:
http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html

Getting this thing going should be simple, securing it is a different
matter. I've had to make several adjustments to the firewall rules since
I got it going. Make sure you can ssh into this machine from the outside
if they expect you to maintain this system.

Good luck.
Bart