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Hi James!

I want to start out just saying THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for your very
thoughtful and considerate reply! What you have (below) is just perfect,
from anticipating what I am needing to offering sound and concise help!
Thank you!

As I wasn't surprised, I've had literally weeks now with absolutely
no time for this. I have just a small amount of time tonight.

>Unfortunately, due to the games marketers play, the word "router" has
>become slightly ambiguous.

Thank you! I hadn't realized that "router" had more than one real
meaning!

>Do you want the system to forward packets; that is, behave like a
>normal router? If so, then you'll want to do this:
>
> ndd -set /dev/ip ip_forwarding 1

Yes, Sir. That is most certainly what I want it to do.

>Put that in a custom script in /etc/rc3.d, and you should be all set.
>Note that creating a non-empty /etc/defaultrouter file on the system
>will cause the default setting for IP forwarding to be "off." It's
>assumed that a system using static routing doesn't know how to route
>properly unless manually configured otherwise.

I haven't done this yet. After I execute something, like the ndd
command you have, above, and it's working like I want, I certainly will do
this.

Right now, I have an /etc/defaultrouter file that contains only:
192.168.0.1

That is the IP address of my DI604, which is really my external
firewall and home/office router.

hme0 on the Sun is connected to this box. I've been experimenting,
but right now, the Sun is really the only computer connected to it, in
system number 1 slot/LED. (And, the cable modem is attached to this box,
as well.)

hme1 on the Sun is attached to my Linux computer, which is really the
system where nearly everything is done.

I did run the above command. It did change a couple of things (I saw
the use count on the netstat -r for the default/gateway go from 0 to 2,
for one thing). However, I still didn't appear to have any "throughput"
from my Linux system to the Internet.

It did greatly increase what snoop was reporting.

>Do you want the system to be a NAT; that is, behave like a
>"home/office router" in marketingese? If so, then you'll need to set
>up something like IP Filter or SunScreen.

Pardon my ignorance, but I don't *think* I need the system to be set
up as Network Address Translation... Can the system, along with the
D-Link DI-604 (Ethernet Broadband Router), be a router that simply
forwards all packets between the Linux and the DI604/cable modem, without
being a NAT?

>(For what it's worth, Solaris 8 is pretty old now. I'd suggest at
>least considering an upgrade.)

Heh heh! I understand, and I've fielded this suggestion, before.

The basic is I have been VERY low on money. (I was laid off and out
of my field for two and a half YEARS. The jobs I had didn't make enough.
I cleaned out my Roth IRA and borrowed from my mother, who lives with me.
I've been working at ITT since May of 2005. It is going EXTREMELY well!
I paid my mother off last week, in fact, so I'm back to just owing my
mortgage again! But, between the fact that I don't have much extra money
coupled with the fact I have incredibly little home time, right now, I was
in a "Hey, this Ultra 30, since it was given to me [in 2003] and I
installed the Solaris that was with it [8], has been working *perfectly*
and I just don't need anything else!" :-) It is my mail host/server. The
Sun system runs fetchmail, which checks with RoadRunner once every five
minutes and transfers any mail for either me or my mother to its hard
drive, and deletes it from RoadRunner. And then, via an NFS mount, when
either I or my mother read our mail, it's really reading the Sun disk.
Last October, when I installed the larger Sun hard drive, it hadn't been
booted since January 3, 2006!) I am with you, and I likely will... but if
I could just pretty well duplicate what I have now (on the 4 GB hard
drive) on my newer 18G hard drive, that -- for right now -- will be
sufficient. And, I'm also looking to do this by March 11, because I've
retrieved the patches I need for the new daylight savings time (DST), but
I'm planning on applying the patches on my "disk1" instead of my "disk0".
:-)

Thank you for the suggestion. I truly am okay with the idea, but
having such little home time, right now, I was thinking if I could just
keep what I had, with the Sun, for right now, that would be better for me.

>Snoop should be able to show where the packets are going.

Thank you for reminding me of this! I knew a little about snoop, at
one time, but I had completely forgotten about it!

In fact, I'm looking for some documentation to help me interpret its
messages, right now! (There is, for example, a "DNS R Error: 3(Name
Error)" and other messages I want to try to understand exactly what that
means. (And, this is on my disk0, which -- obviously, since I'm posting
this -- is working fine with the Internet.)

>"netstat -s" will give you some useful statistics about IP forwarding.

I want you to know that you are very much appreciated, that someone
would take the time to read and help me!

I'm going to study the "ndd" and see what else I may need to do, and
find some documentation on how to interpret snoop messages!

Barry

--
Barry L. Bond | http://home.cfl.rr.com/os9barry/
Software Engineer, ITT Corporation | (My personal home web page, last
bbondATcfl.rr.com | updated February 17, 2005)