Woody kernel 2.4.18 ready for NAT? Can't make it work

[lacostej <lacostej@frisurf.no>]

Hi,

We are having trouble to set up NAT on a server to act as gateway to a private 
home network.

I've done so on other machines, but each time compiled my own kernel. This 
time we tried to use Debian's. I.e.  kernel-image-2.4.18-586tsc as distributed 
in woody 3.0 images.

The machine connects correctly to the web, but NAT doesn't work.

We've found this comment on the following page: 
http://www.aboutdebian.com/proxy.htm.

"You can check to see if your kernel is set up for masquerading by issuing the 
command: ls /proc/net/ip_masq "

On our installation, this displays nothing.

We checked the kernel config as found in the package referenced on page:
http://packages.debian.org/stable/base/kernel-image-2.4.18-586tsc.html

and it seems that the kernel was compiled with everything necessary for NAT.

Did we get something wrong?
Is the comment stating to check /proc/net/ip_masq still valid regarding kernel 
2.4.x?
Do we have to compile our own kernel, or is there something we can do to 
correct the state.

Cheers,

Jerome