Forward & return

[cjkenworthy]

I want to set up a 'device' (computer/router) to act as a kind of bridge between a dialup connection and a LAN webserver and back again.

I plan to allow traffic on TCP ports to connect over the internet to the dialup computer - I then want the device to forward the traffic internally over the LAN to a specific server e.g. a web server listening on port 80 - the webserver will respond to the 'device', which I then want it to return the original client.

At first this may sound like a job for a firewall, but I thought it might be possible using IPSEC or other windows utility.

Failing that can anyone recommend a good utility to achieve this? Is it feasible?

It will be on a Windows 2000 machine.

 

[pansophic]

Do you mean that you have a LAN that is using dial-up access to the Internet? If so, I would suggest that you download Smootwall or IPCop. Both are Linux firewalls that allow you to have a Red interface that is dialup (you manage them over a web interface, so you don't have to understand Linux even a little bit). Then you will get some level of control over who accesses what ports on which computers of your LAN. It also supports Dynamic DNS, so your web server can be accessed by name.

A router will do the same thing, with more limited control over the firewalling function.


pansophic