Re: [cobalt-users] Is port mapping possible with the NAT setup on theQube2?

["dr. mikey." <mikey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

dear all (or at least the subset that cares),

some time ago i posted a couple of notes about getting port forwarding
to work on our Qube2.  well, i now want to report that i managed to get
it to work, and let you know how i did it for those that care.

the program i used is called portfwd and was written by Everton da Silva
Marques <evertonm@xxxxxxxxxxx>.  i downloaded it from the freshmeat
archive (http://freshmeat.net/appindex/1999/11/29/943881752.html).  i
had some trouble compiling it at first, but once i finally got that
figured out (with much help from the author) the program worked like a
charm.  it was designed to forward tcp connections and udp packets
coming into one port to a different port on the same or a different
computer, where the portmapping is controlled by a separate config file.

in order to get the program to compile correctly i had to first install
egcs and flex, both of which were found to be necessary).  i found a pkg
file on the cobalt site called "All-Kernel_mips_tools-1.0.pkg", which
contained both of those programs as well as a variety of other useful
development tools.  that package can be found at: 
ftp://ftp.cobaltnet.com/pub/developer/Kernel/mips/All-Kernel_mips_tools-1.0.pkg. 
however, you should know that there apears to be a bug in the uninstall
script, where it will uninstall a sister pkg called
"All-Kernel_mips-1.0.pkg" instead (by the way, i believe that this
kernel update package does need to be installed before the development
tools, and you can find it listed on the Qube2 downloads page:
http://www.cobalt.com/support/download/index.html).  unfortunately, when
i tried to fix the uninstall script and repackage the rpm's, the pkg
then failed to install on my system (it just hung up and never finished
processing, for all i know this would have happened even before i messed
with the pkg).

so, what i did was to decompress the kernel_tools pkg, then manually
install each of the rpm's that were a part of the pkg file, typing at a
command line:  "rpm -U rpm_filename --force --nodeps", which was the
same command the install script used.  as i was doing this i also
discovered that the gcc rpm had to be re-installed (the Qube2 ships with
gcc already installed) after the egcs rpm because installing egcs
removed gcc (as determined using the command "rpm -q gcc").

that done, the portfwd program compiled just fine using "make".  i then
copied the portfwd program to the /usr/local/sbin directory as described
in the readme file that came with it.  i then created a test config file
to forward port 10000 to port 23, and started the program, as described
in the readme.  and low and behold it worked like a charm, when
telnet'ing to port 10000 - i got port 23.  

my own config file (to forward the FileMaker Pro registered port 5003 to
an internal computer running FMPro server) uses the following lines: (a)
"tcp { 5003 { => 192.168.2.103:5003 } }" and (b) "udp { 5003 { =>
192.168.2.103:5003 } }".

now, our offsite users can access our filemaker pro databases hosted by
an iMac running FMPro server via an internet connection forwarded
through a Qube2.

i hope this helps those of you trying to do the same thing,

mikey.


-- 
mike songster <mikey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
work1: http://www.biosearchtech.com
work2: http://www.chem.umn.edu/orgs/ampepsoc

spinning and spinning and spinning around...
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