How to get in through a router

[beartooth]

I'm in process of setting up a LAN -- with a lot of help from an
electronic friend and guru. The first thing, the way we're doing it, is to
get in at all, share files, back things up, etc; then upgrade machines --
all the present FC1 ones to FC4, and maybe also the YDL4 one to FC4, maybe
not.  It would be a convenience ...

Case in point: using the dhcp table from the router, along with
sbin/ifconfig, I can disable iptables on the FC1 machines with
/sbin/service iptables stop, and then ssh a/o scp from one to another
using IP numbers. (We'll set up proper machine names later, after all the
upgrades, and then make specific holes in the firewalls; this is just a
start.)

But YDL won't take /sbin/service iptables stop, even from root's prompt; I
suppose the Terrasoft people have put it somewhere else.

I tried going into Services from the Main Menu, and stopping iptables
there; I also made sure sshd was running.

But ssh to the iBook's IP from an FC1 machine just gets an error : "ssh:
connect to host 192.168.x.y port 22: No route to host"

What do I have to do?? Don't forget that I still mean that bottom .sig
line!

-- 
Beartooth Neo-Redneck, Linux Evangelist
FC 1&4, YDL 4; Pine 4.63, Pan 0.14.2; Privoxy 3.0.3; 
Dillo 0.8.5, Opera 8.01, Firefox 1.0.4, Epiphany 1.0.8
Remember that I have little idea what I am talking about.