[plug] Gateways and Windoze

[Christian]

Bret Busby wrote:
> >
> > Hummmm! sounds like a job for Squid or a proxy server to get round the
> > firewall
> > you built. Try this URL: http://squid.nlanr.net/

> We were advised against using a proxy server; as we didn't need the caching.
> However, it may not have been realised then, that we would be wanting to be
> using a Windoze client for Internet access.
> Is a proxy server the only option for this problem, while retaining the
> gateway/firewall?

It *definitely* isn't the only solution and, IMHO, is not really a
solution more of a partial workaround.  For example, you won't be able
to send/receive anything else over the masqueraded link -- just HTTP
(and FTP with a web browser) through the proxy.  The solution sounds
like to set the default gateway of the Windows machines to be the
internal address of your NAT box and to ensure that they're correctly
configured with the correct IP address and have a route to that network
(Windows normally takes care of the latter).

While squid isn't the solution for the problem you're having, it still
may be useful.  For example, currently every instance of Netscape (ie,
for each operating system and for each user) will have it's own disk
cache.  Why not allocate a couple of hundred megs (or whatever you can
spare) on your NAT machine and run a squid cache here?  You can turn off
the disk caches in all the Netscapes/IEs you're running and everyone can
share the large central cache.  At home I have only two client machines
but each of those dual boots (actually, one boots Windows, OpenBSD,
Linux and Solaris).  So, even though there are only two machines there
could be ~10 different copies of Netscape with 10x10 meg machines each. 
It seems silly not to take 100-200 meg located centrally, allow all
Netscapes to share this cache and save 100 meg of disk space on the
other machines.

As for your question about IMAP and POP, this is covered by a link in
the Networking Overview HOWTO (URL posted previously) which you *should*
have read given what you're attempting to do.  Here is the URL I found
in about 10 seconds of searching:
	http://www.imap.org/imap.vs.pop.brief.html

I won't bill you for my time. ;-)

Regards,

Christian.