I have a couple issues one with iptables, the other is a dhpd issue

Hello all, what I have going on here I have been researching and well I got a lot done on my own here with this project. Now I am beyond stuck

This is what I am trying to accomplish.

I am running an athlonXP 2600+ with 512MB ram. I am using Mandriva 2007 Power Pack as my choice for linux distro. Here is what I am currently doing with the system. It acts as my firewall, gateway, and router on my wired network. It also on occasion serves up some content on the internet. In the future it will also be acting as a mail server.

What I am trying to do is get it up and running serving as a wifi hot spot as well. I have got all the connections set up correctly. Both the connectons for the internal network are set up with the interface listings repective to their type. The ethernet card is setup as eth1 and is configured as a static ip and as the subnet gateway. The wifi card is set up as ap0 and is configured the same as eth1.

I have shorewall setting up my firewall rules. I configured them according to the shorewall doccumentation for a three interface setup minus a few minute changes to the rules. I don't need a dmz zone so I configured it so that the wifi zone has access to the wired zone of my network and visa versa. Otherwise the configureation is theirs out of the box. I used webmin to set up the rules for speed and then manually checked them to make sure they were correct. I also ran shorewalls configuration check to make sure all was well.

I brought up the connections and proceeded to try to connect to each subnet. On my wired lan I wasn't able to get any client to bring up their interface in both Mandriva 2006 & 2007 or WinXP. I chaulked this up to dhcpd.conf not being configured correctly so I manually edited it. I did so because initially it wouldn't start as a service or when I would manually load it. Here is what I edited it to, so it would reflect my network setup:

ddns-update-style none;
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
# default gateway
option routers 192.168.0.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;

option domain-name "";
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.2;
option domain-name-servers 68.87.71.226;
range dynamic-bootp 192.168.0.16 192.168.0.253;
default-lease-time 21600;
max-lease-time 432000;
}

subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
# default gateway
option routers 192.168.1.1;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;

option domain-name "";
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.2;
option domain-name-servers 68.87.71.226;
range dynamic-bootp 192.168.1.16 192.168.1.253;
default-lease-time 21600;
max-lease-time 432000;
}

I restarted the dhcpd damon and even tried a reboot. I am having the same issues with my clients connecting to the lan. The only difference is now after the file edit the dhcpd damon comes up right at boot. The wifi acces point I created connects fine.

My wifi enabled Windows mobile phone connects like a champ. It acquires my hotspot and then tries to connect by default. It proceeds to authenticate me, acquires an ip address via dhcp, and becomes a member of the subnet without a hiccup. I can then connect to all 3 interfaces on the firewall machine no problem. For example I load Pocket IE and manually enter the ip addresses to each of the interfaces. It connects to all 3 interfaces fine. I am able to connect to this machine using its dynamically assigned ip by my isp. I am also abble to connect to the gateway addresses I set up for each, which are 192.168.1.1 for eth1 and 192.168.0.1 for ap0.

My firewall rules are correct, being setup with the shorewall documentation as my guide, I had webmin check them after I did, and the service wouldn't start up otherwise in Mandriva. Here is what I set up and which files they were.

In zones
fw firewall
net ipv4
loc ipv4
wifi ipv4

In interfaces
#ZONE INTERFACE BROADCAST OPTIONS
net eth0 detect dhcp,noping,blacklist
loc eth1 detect
wifi ap0 detect

In policy
#SOURCE DEST POLICY LOG LIMIT:BURST
# LEVEL
$FW net ACCEPT
loc net ACCEPT
wifi net ACCEPT
$FW loc ACCEPT
loc fw ACCEPT
$FW wifi ACCEPT
wifi fw ACCEPT
loc wifi ACCEPT
wifi loc ACCEPT
net all DROP info
all all REJECT info

I think this should be enough to get all my connections up and running so that my network isn't crippled. It can't be my rule sets with shorewall. It has to be the fact no matter what I do iptables won't load.

I have tried to get iptables to load since the beginning of this. I am having no luck. I am only familiar with starting this process from the Mandriva control center. I have only had to use the Mandriva Internet connection sharing application and it set all of the shorewall rules up, and iptables until now. Occasionally I would need to restart it so I did it from the services application in the control center. It usually prints the output from the starting of the service succes fail what it did to start up etc in a pop up window for each service. It won't for iptables. It gives nothing for output and I don't know how to manually execute it with my shorewall rulesets to see if it is Mandriva's fault on why it won't start. It prints the verbose output for shutting it down when I click the stop button.

I have searched here, googled, you name it and I just about tried it. I can't find one thing closely related to my problem. I need help please. Someone out here must be able to help me out. I am almost litterally on my knees begging here for help. I am at my wits end. I don't know what else I can do to solve this problem.

I was trying more searching trying to solve my problems and i went looking on my system as well to see what iptables' files I could find. Do these files need to be populated with data to get iptables to start? Then does shorewall reset the rules through iptables?

I am looking at any possibility here.

These are the files:

ip_tables_matches

ip_tables_names

ip_tables_targets

Am I barking up the right tree?

I posted a thread in networking linking to this one figuring after the fact that was a more appropriate place for the thread and someone closed it out over there. I hope that I still get people over to here because I am beyond stumped.

Here is my latest update

I had no luck with this attempt to solve the problem. Compiling a new kernel got me no where except without connectivity at all. I compiled all my necessary driver modules for my hardware. I also compiled iptables into all of its modules. My driver modules load up without a hitch. The ones for iptables I am not sure about.

I am still having the same problem of iptables not starting at boot. I am ready to start pulling my hair out now. I am going to try compiling iptables straight into the kernel so it doesn't have to load modules for iptables. Lets see if that solves my problem of iptables not loading.

Before I ran Mandriva 2007 Gnome Edition, I started with Mandrakelinux 8.1 Distro. The installation has a section near the end of the install,... services to start at boot time. It is configurable, and accurate. I really appreciated this feature. Mandriva 2007 should also be configurable. During boot up, the option to participate in run level 5 is initiated with the offer of pressing "I" at the beginning of the run level 5 options. Then selecting the options with "Yes" or "No". IPTables is an option to start or not start. Hope this helps YOU.