Hello, I am quite new to Debian and Linux in general, and really started using Debian as it was the only distro. I could find on the net that I could install from floppies. I have graduated to potato CDs now though.
I've been experimenting with an old 486 and am now ready to embark on my first real project as a way of learning more about Debian and networking in general. I would be grateful if you could help by answering a series of questions I have noted down (the first 2 are below). I have installed potato and some modules and packages (inc. ipmasq) and have my Debian box masking the presence of my Windows PC. What I would like to do is rebuild the Debian box so it has the bare bones necessary to work as a firewall. The kind of structure I have in mind is:- [Win. 98 Box]--eth--[Debian Box]--modem--[Internet Service Provider] I intend to add other machines on my network later and have the Debian Box doing ipmasq, ipchains and diald. My first two questions are:- Would it be *much* safer to insert a second Debian Box with 2 ethernet cards, one machine to do the firewalling and one to make the connection to the internet? Presumably if I did that the machine making the internet connection would be potentially vulnerable? Is there anything wrong with using IP addresses such as 10.0.0.1 and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 for my machines? The gateway will have a dynamic IP addr. from my ISP as well. TIA Mike
