bridging problem

[Ian Smith]

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Alejandro 'Lanjoe9' Valenzuela wrote:

 > Hello everyone, I've got a bridging problem...

[..]

 > 1) The wired card (realtek rl0) is configured vía sysinstall to have a 
 > static IP address (currently 192.168.0.99, netmask 255.255.255.0 ) and 
 > as a gateway and dns server, a windoze 98 machine with ICS (don't kick 
 > me, the stupid modem won't work with anything else)

A smarter modem might save lots of pain, but anyway .. and I'll skip the
wireless stuff, having no direct experience.

 > 3) The bridge is set up with these commands (bridge support is compiled 
 > into my kernel as option BRIDGE ):
 > sysctl net.link.ether.bridge.enable=1
 > sysctl net.link.ether.bridge.config="ath0,rl0"
 > sysctl net.inet.ip.forwarding=1

So it's both a bridge AND a router?  Sounds tricky ..

[..]

 > The problem is, from the wireless computer I can always ping and see the 
 > other computers, but the other way around does not work (I can't even 
 > ping the wireless computer from the wired ones, including the bridging 
 > one), and I can only connect to the internet from the wireless computer 
 > (and see that wireless computer from the other ones) when I'm contacting 
 > in some way the gateway computer (for example hearing a sound file 
 > stored in the gateway computer).
 > 
 > What could be the cause?

Routing?  Not enough to go on.  netstat?  tcpdumps?  firewall?

I've set up one bridge / firewall / monitor / logger etc between a proxy
/ NAT gateway and its ethernet, also providing an 'inside'web and samba
server, but all traffic through the bridge (ie not to the box itself)
is, well, bridged, not routed.

Cheers, Ian