kinetic

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Ok so here's the skinny: I am "in charge" of my household's LAN which consists of 4-6 computers (3 connected through ethernet and 1-3 connected via wireless) plus a headless "server" running off of an HP ThinClient. The whole thing goes through this crappy Actiontec modem (wireless included) which is highly prone to overheating, clogging, paper jams, etc... What I've decided to do is have all the traffic route through the ThinClient (set up using Gentoo) before hitting the modem and heading out into the internet. The problem with this is that the ThinClient only has 1 NIC, and I don't intend on buying another one.

What would be the best way to set this up? The way I originally had it was to have everything on the LAN on the same subnet, using the ThinClient as the default gateway, then have the ThinClient use the modem as its default gateway. Some clever NAT tables, and it worked... sort of. I had to turn off ICMP warnings that kept telling the clients to switch their default gateways. Plus the whole thing seemed kind of clunky.

The other idea I had was to set up TWO subnets, one between the ThinClient and the modem using a bridged TUN interface, and the other being the straightforward eth0 interface connecting to the rest of the LAN. I assume this would work although I haven't tried it yet.

So what are your ideas? Do either of these solutions sound reasonable, or is there another solution that I haven't thought of yet?

Please, no solutions involving buing another NIC. People telling me to go out and buy another NIC will be shot on sight.

osor

The wireless traffic will pass through the modem either way. In fact, if you want to route the wireless (for firewalling, throttling, or whatever), it must traverse the modem twice.

If you want 2 subnets, you can use IP aliasing on one interface rather than a bridged TUN interface (requires less setup, behaves almost exactly like a second interface).

Buying a second interface (which, btw costs around 5 USD where I'm from) would still make the wireless clients seem more awkwardly configured (you would have a separate setup for the wireless than the wired).

The only problem with a 1-NIC solution is weirdness with DHCP, which I assume is a non-issue with your modem.

TimothyEBaldwin

You may also need to stop ICMP redirect messages, or your hosts will use the direct route to the modem.