Bart Garst wrote:

>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).
>>    
>>
>>>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
>
>
>  
>
As this is a g/f, not  family, or  a long  time friend, I was thinking 
about just setting up debian stable and making a cron job do an apt-get 
update; apt-get upgrade every night.

This would be sufficent I trust to keep the box from getting easily cracked?

For that matter I know that it is not a great idea to use a desktop as a 
firewall, but is it really that terrible?