routes are killing me - how to?

[Stefan Jeglinski]

>  >> echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
>>>
>>>  This allows, as the name implies ip forwarding. Most basic NAT.
>
>I believe that this statement is false. I have never heard of IP forwarding
>doing anything except forwarding a packet not destined for its network to
>the appropriate gateway in its routing table. To say that setting ip_forward
>sets up a basic router, would be true.

So, now we get back to the routing table, which was my original 
question. The assertion that the answer to my question is to set 
ip_forward =1 as above is quite frankly wrong. It was claimed that 
doing so would "just work." It does not. Something else is wrong with 
my setup, and no one seems to be able to identify that issue.

I still can't tell if I must combine the echo command with *further* 
iptables commands, just to get packets to forward. To hell with 
security for the time being, I just want to get the private network 
passing packets to the public network and vice versa.


Stefan Jeglinski