[YLUG] Interesting Networking Problem

[Njal Munro]

Hi guy's
	It's been a while since i have posted, for one reason or another, but
alas i have a problem i cannot seem to fix easily. I have learned a lot
while i have been away so don't make as many stupid mistakes as i did.
But here is my problem.

I have a computer i want to turn into a webserver, in fact i had a
computer that was a webserver, something happened, i don't know what but
apache crashed and i couldn't start the service again, but more on that
later.

This webserver is currently in development while a site is created for
it etc, now, before it gets complete access to the web i need to set a
few things up. We have wireless internet in the house, and i have a
iBook G4 running Dapper, with the bcm43xx driver working perfectally,
this laptop should act as a router to the desktop, it did, but doesn't
now.

This laptop is asigned a ip from a DHCP wireless router, i cannot change
the fact it's assigned by DHCP, it's not my router, it's a uni house.
However once the laptop is assigned it's IP on wireless interfact (eth0)
it should share it's connection with the Desktop via an ethernet cable
(eth1) the laptop's eth1 connects to the desktop's ethernet (eth0) and
both SHOULD be on the internet.

The laptop's eth1 port is assigned the static IP 192.168.0.1, the
desktop's eth0 is assigned 192.168.0.2 it's gateway is assigned as the
laptop's IP, and the DNS info was copied from my laptop to my desktop
propery, now the desktop run's fedora 5. 

Now i can confirm where there is a problem but it might not be THE
problem, routing SHOULD be set up on the
laptop /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forwarding should be set to 1, but isn't
after a reboot (of course, it's proc, it's a virtual file system), but
even setting it to 1 (echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward(yes as
root, not sudo, root)) and rebooting the webserver to detect the new
settings does not work.

Now as i said i have had this working once, but an update required my
laptop to reboot as this obviously screwed the routing.

So, if anyone can help, i hope i have been through enough, and if not, i
shall provide anything that might be needed, it would be nice if anyone
could help.

Many thanks
Neil Munro