[plug] trying to share internet - seems hopeless

[Coral and Ben]

Hi there pluggians,

I am running kubuntu 7.04 with kernel 2.6.17-50-generic (not the 
standard kernel - the std one labels some IDE dvd/cdroms as scsi devices 
and tries to control them as such - some kind of sideways step in kernel 
development probably designed to be more compatible with sata drives but 
you end up with unusable ide devices), and I have bigpond wireless 
broadband with the blue desktop modem.

I have fantastic reception since installing a car antenna to the outside 
of my house (without the antenna I get scanty intermittent reception) 
and the modem seems to work fine in linux, being assigned a dynamic IP 
and the device label ppp0 once it is 'dialed' and connected. While it is 
not in use it does not exist - ifconfig doesnt list it.

I really need to share this connection around the house, my computer has 
a working wireless adapter (eth1), my daughters kubuntu machine (7.04, 
standard kernel) has a working wireless adapter, and my husband has a 
windows laptop with a working everything (including wireless and blutooth)

I also have two wireless routers, a plain one with wireless, ethernet 
and a wan link (this one doesnt want to work without internet detected 
at its wan port however), the other one is an asus wl-500g premium, it 
has the same features as above plus two usb ports for attaching network 
devices like HDD's and webcam's, this one is supposed to be able to take 
new firmware and is listed as compatible with openwrt and dd-wrt both of 
which are supposed to make it able to dial the modem when correctly 
configured (these two firmware versions are essentially mini-linux distros)

my computer also has working ethernet (eth0), but when it is active the 
ppp0 interface is bumped from its position as internet gateway, and will 
not be reinstated no matter how hard I try

ifconfig:
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:02:72:63:0F:B5
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:115012 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:115012 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:8968550 (8.5 MiB)  TX bytes:8968550 (8.5 MiB)

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
          inet addr:124.178.181.225  P-t-P:10.64.64.64  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2826 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2929 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
          RX bytes:1380590 (1.3 MiB)  TX bytes:305747 (298.5 KiB)

*eth0 is deactivated

I have tried the ubuntu forum but only got a couple of obvious (and not 
really helpful) responses and no recent replies to my posts there

I have guidedog installed (supposed to be an easy nat/masquerade thing - 
but  without help I don't get that either) I have guarddog - iptables 
frontend and I have tried to use firestarter (also an iptables frontend 
but, has a very easy way to share internet built in) but that hangs when 
it starts, with no error messages.

some other oddities:
interface lo does not start at boot I have to start it with "ifconfig lo 
up", I have noticed that I often have another interface eth1:avah in 
ifconfig also, that disapears once I stop and restart eth1

also I have working bluthooth, could I share internet that way?

sorry to be so wordy, but this has been going on for quite a while now.

as a side note this internet connection cannot be easily shared in 
windows either, but with some stuffing around, I have shared it the 
windows way before, but this computer is quite new - it came with 
windows which I hung on to briefly until I worked out how to use this 
modem with linux, then i reformatted and now have only linux.

well, thanks in advance
Coral