Trouble configuring network gateway

[John Murphy]

John C <johnc909 at comcast.net> wrote:
>I am attempting to turn a PC into a gateway/firewall for my home network.
>My ISP is Comcast ... So whatever ramifications therein, for better or
>worse, apply to my predicament ...

I don't know anything about Comcast, so my comments may not be helpful.

>I've gotten both interfaces up and working, but I can't seem to get it to
>switch packets from within the subnet out into the internet.  The kernel is
>pretty much GENERIC 4.7, except with the GATEWAY option set, plus with

>net.link.ether.bridge=1
>In sysctl.conf

<snipped network description>

On a pc gateway/firewall running 4.8 I can find nothing about
'GATEWAY' option in GENERIC or LINT.

sysctl -a | grep bridge
returns nothing.

sysctl net.link.ether.bridge
sysctl: unknown oid 'net.link.ether.bridge'

Seems you are trying to make a bridge, which probably isn't what you want.
Set it back to 0.  The bridge stuff enabled in the kernel shouldn't matter.

AFAIK all you need is the following in /etc/rc.conf
gateway_enable=YES          # Set to YES if this host will be a gateway

"This option will set the sysctl(8) variable net.inet.ip.forwarding to 1."
from section 19.2.4 of the Handbook: Building a Router
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/routing.html

Also, you'll need NAT if there will be more than one machine behind the
firewall/gateway.
http://www.uk.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/natd.html

John.