Hello.
I tried searching the forums, but i could not find a good search word to find information about what i want help for so i'm doing it this way in stead although i probably can find the answers somewhere in the forums.

Tomorow my new low cost server is going to arrive and I'm going to put this server on my home internet connection for training and learning purposes. The problem/question is.

Right now my adsl router is forwarding everything to this computer and iptables are my only firewall and protection for the moment. Tomorow after installing Slack on the server i want to be able to use the server as a firewall for this pc between the local and the outside net. How would i do so? I am comfortable with iptables, but I'm pretty sure that it's not the right tool for this?

I'm thinking that I have to forward all traffic from the router to the server, but from there I'm lost.

My server and client will be connected to the same switch which is connected to the router which right now is using static ip's on the local network and forwarding everything to this machine. Both client and server will be using Slack 12.1 and the server is a HP Proliant low cost server.

What i want is someone pointing in the right direction on how to do this.

Thank you in advance for taking time to answer.

if I understand your setup correctly, you have two options

1) subnet your lan and use your new server as a router
2) add a nic to your server and replace your switch with the linux server running a linux bridge

Thank you for the quick answer, adding a nic and doing it that way i understand, or atleast i understand what you mean and can do it with alot of reading.

What do you mean by subnetting and how do i use the server as a router? Won't the adsl router overide the server router?
Maybe you have something i can read on?

Hi,

definitely you should read iptables howto. There is a brief description how to setup an environment like this.

And yes, iptables is the correct tool to do the job.