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Re: sharing a network connection from debian to non-debian



On 2021-01-15 21:02, Dan Hitt wrote:
In 2016, i had a computer with mint on it (which is a form of ubuntu), and
it was connected to an internet modem.  There was a super simple gui on it
that i could use to share that connection with some older hardware that
were not directly connected to the internet modem.  (They were not
connected to the internet modem because for whatever reason, directly
connecting them made them very unstable and prone to crash.)  But,
nevertheless, the old hardware could use the mint box with no configuration
on my part, and get out to the internet through it.

Now, as it happens, i'm planning on upgrading that mint box to debian.

In preparation for that, i'm trying to share the internet with them using
another box, which has debian on it, and which is connected to the internet
modem.  The debian box has some address like 192.168.*.* on the internet
modem network, and an address like 10.*.*.* connected to the old hardware,
and the two networks have no direct connection, they just both hook up to
my debian machine (one on the motherboard's ethernet, and one on a
usb/ethernet device).

For the old hardware, i can specify the address, a gateway, and a host for
dns (all done by ip).  I would choose the ip of the debian box for both the
gateway and the dns, and i'd take the ip address of the old hardware to
just be something unused (no need to run dhcpd on the debian box, i think).

So i just need to know what to do on the debian box so that it can field
requests to get ips from host names on the internet, and forward packets to
the internet modem.  Hopefully, it will be some simple tool like
nm-connection-editor, but maybe it has to be a series of commands.  If it
is a series of commands, what are they?

TIA for any info!

I set up a personal computer (PC) as a firewall/ router using a general-purpose FOSS OS distribution (Red Hat Linux?) many years ago. It was a lot a work, but I learned a lot about networking and Linux. If you choose this path, you will need to learn "netfilter":

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch05.en.html#_netfilter_infrastructure


Some years later, purpose-built firewall/ router FOSS distributions with WWW control panels became available. These were easier to configure and manage than a general-purpose OS, and more secure. IP Cop was my favorite:

http://www.ipcop.org/


But an old PC running 24x7 is bulky, requires a keyboard and monitor, consumes electricity, makes noise, and generates heat. I wanted a small, silent, low-power box with a WWW control panel. I tried various consumer firewall/ router/ WiFi/ switch appliances, and FOSS firmware for some, but they were all lacking and I bricked at least one device.


After more searching, I found UniFi:

https://www.ui.com/unifi-routing/usg/

https://www.ui.com/unifi/unifi-ap-ac-lite/


The killer feature is the UniFi Controller server software, which is available as a Debian package (I run it on a Debian VPS in the cloud). Using the WWW interface, you assemble individual devices into networks and use the controller to manage everything in a coordinated fashion:

https://help.ui.com/hc/en-us/articles/220066768-UniFi-How-to-Install-Update-via-APT-on-Debian-or-Ubuntu


David


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