Setting up a server/firewall

[ecks]

Ok, right now, my main goal is to set up a server since I'm behind a router. Currently, my connection looks like this:
modem==>router==>2 pcs
I'm trying to have a connection like this:
modem==>server==>router==>PC
I have tried to disconnect everything and just setup a PC with internet connection from the modem. I can't even accomplish that. I'm using Mandrake 9.2 and have a comcast cable connection. I have tried to setup a gateway obtained from http://www.findmyip.com but with no luck. I also have another NIC that seems to work, but I removed it for the time being not to mess everything up. I have also set up dhclient but that doesn't do anything. When I start up, It gives me some kind of an insmod error that says IO and IRQ modules have incorrect parameters, but I never came across a program like this. Any help or redirection would be greatly appreciated.

[Choozo]

Have a look at SmoothWall (http://www.smoothwall.org) for your firewall/router needs.

Cheers :)

[ecks]

But this is a separate OS. First of all, my cd recorder currently doesn't work so I can't really burn disks. Secondly, I don't want to use that computer for just a firewall. I was thinking about putting an Apache and Samba server on it. Is this my only choice?

[Choozo]

Nah, there are tons of choices if you search around a bit. But running a lot of services unrelated to firewalling/routing on a firewall pretty much compromises the whole firewall.

If you don't want to dedicate that box to a firewall, look into other hardware solutions that have firewall/router capabilities - like some of the Linksys routers?

Cheers :)

[ecks]

Well, I do have a D-Link router as I mentioned in my earlier post. The main reason I'm trying to single out my computer before the router is because I want to have an external server to serve my webpages to the outside world. To tell you the truth, I don't really need a firewall, all I want is to direct traffic to the router if the destination IP is not mine. However, it seems very hard next to impossible to accomplish that. I would really like if you gave me some other choices, I searched around this site and found nothing.

[Choozo]

Does the D-link router have any DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) setup? That is, a subnet separated from your LAN.

The topography would look something like this then:

+---------------+
_______| server on DMZ |
+----------+_/ +---------------+
----| firewall |_ +--------+ +------+
+----------+ \_____| switch |-----------| PC 1 |
+--------+\ +------+
\ +------+
+---| PC 2 |
+------+

[ecks]

Yes, thank you for pointing that out to me. I have enabled DMZ for my server's IP address, which is 192.168.0.112. Now what must I do? What IP should be entered to access my server? So far I have three addresses that might be possibilites. There is the internal IP, or 192.168.0.122. There is the router ip which is 69.241.203.83 and there is also the gateway IP, which I'm guessing is the modem interface IP address, 69.241.200.1. I have tried inputting all three and none of them work. What else must be setup? Please help, I've been trying this all day. Oh, and on the router configuration I have input virtual hosts whereas port 8080 gets processed to 192.168.0.122. Thanx for any help in advance.

[ecks]

Problem solved, I set up a virtual host for port 80 and it worked.

[Choozo]

Hang on ....

You can't have DMZ and LAN on the same subnet: 192.168.0.x
Use e.g 192.168.1.x for DMZ and 192.168.0.x for your LAN

[as6200]

you could just forward the necessary ports from the router......

[as6200]

I have an ftp and http server running from behind a router.

[chesskidd]

I have an ftp and http server running from behind a router.

Is it necessary to construct some more software firewalls behind a hardware firewall? or it's not needed?

The reason that I ask is that I have a similar situation, a linksys router, so I'm trying to figure out of I need to install more software firewall tools, such as shorewall or something. Any suggestion?