Win200 gateway blocking FBSD html?

[Robert Storey]

I'm trying to set up a FreeBSD client machine for a school. They have never used FBSD or even Linux, they are 100% Windows. They are interested in letting their students gain experience with non-Windows software. So I need to prove to them that FBSD can work, but I've run into a major obstacle.

The client machines are connected to a switch, which is connected to a Windows 2000 gateway machine to access the Internet. I set up a FBSD client, and using dhcp it can find the network. I can ping the gateway machine, and even ping the local ISP. I can also use gftp to access some anonymous ftp sites (such as FreeBSD.org) though performance seems slow.

The problem - I cannot access any web sites with http. Doesn't matter if I use Konqueror, Mozilla or Lynx. Yet, all the Windows machines on this network can browse the web (using Internet Explorer) without difficulty.

I find this very peculiar. Just to be sure that I don't have a misconfigured firewall on the FBSD box, I installed FBSD on my laptop, plugged it into a different network - works fine, I can surf the web. Then I plug it into the school's network, and http doesn't work, but ping and ftp can reach the outside world (though again, it's slow).

Is it somehow possible that the Windows gateway only allows Internet Explorer to work? Doesn't seem possible, but what do I know? All suggestions welcome.

best regards,
Robert