Free BSD Router/Gateway

[Tim Erlin]

Robert Slade wrote:
> This leads me to my first question, what modem should I use, is there a
> USB or PCI modem that works well with Free BSD? 

Is there a reason you wouldn't just connect the 'modem' to the FreeBSD 
box via ethernet? The DSL comes into the modem, the ethernet goes out to 
the FreeBSD box. You would need a second NIC in the box for this.

If you want to confirm compatible hardware, check out the hardware notes 
associated with the release you're using: 
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/index.html

> Thinking about the Firwall / Routing issue leads to more questions:
> 
> What would the best way of doing this be, bearing in mind that it would
> need to be remotely administered, preferably by a web page?

The minimal requirements would be:

1. NAT (network address translation)

The FreeBSD handbook has some good material on configuring NAT and port 
forwarding.

2. Firewall Application (ipfw, ipf, ipfilter)
3. DHCP (dhcpd)
4. DNS (BIND, djbdns)

These apps are either built in or easily available via the ports tree.

If you're going to have multiple IPs coming in the DSL and routed to the 
  hosts behind it, you'll want to look at aliasing the interface to 
accept traffic for all of them ('man ifconfig').

As for the remote administration, if you *really* want web based, webmin 
is popular (http://www.webmin.com/)but then again, so is ssh. If you can 
live with the command line, you won't have to install a webserver at all.

> Is there a Howtoo or similar that would help?

Many. Google is your friend.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=freebsd+howto+firewall&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=freebsd+howto+NAT&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=freebsd+howto+DNS&btnG=Search
etc ...

Good luck.

--Tim Erlin