Debian router help!

[smp]

Hi all.
I need some clarification on some things pertaining to debian (well, linux generally I guess) and routing.
I have read the IPchains howto and the IPmasq howto and I left them feeling confused.
I have a typical home network, or will, after tonight. The setup I have right now was created for me by a friend and I would like to take charge of the situation and do it my damn self. So, I am setting up a P75 that has two NICs in it as my router. I will disable all services except SSH on this machine.
These are the steps I plan on taking.. I will be using the 192.168.x.x scheme.

Install Debian
Configure NICs
WAN card will be DHCP (cable modem)
LAN card will be 192.168.1.1

I will set up rc.firewall with the appropriate masq modules (quake, irc etc).......... (when the hell will there be masq support for netmeeting?!!!)
Then I will create a startup script to get IPchains working and the firewall like so

# ipchains -P forward DENY
# ipchains -A forward -i eth0 -j MASQ
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
# /etc/init.d/rc.firewall (will this work? Or do I have to tell it to run or something?)

This should do it no? I've never done this alone, so I don't really know. I'm pretty confused about IPchains too, it feels like it's over my head.


edit: The reason that I am using a full fledged distro, instead of something like coyote or freesco (I don't think freesco has DHCP client anyway) is because;
a) I want to get a strangle hold on debian, I want to be l33t
b) I need to run SSH off of it and probably BitchX
c) I want to eventually get a really tight security policy in place because that is the stuff that I am interested in learning (TCPwrappers, firewall stuff, maybe proxy)
d) Other reasons that I can't remember now

Oh yeah.. and I'm not quite certain what my IPchains arguments are doing.. they were just taken from the howto.
As far as I know
#ipchains -P (policy) forward DENY;
is saying "forward policy is DENY all" .. why do I want to do this?
#ipchains -A (append) forward -i (interface) eth0 -j (jump) MASQ;
is saying "Forward to interface eth0 and masq" right?

Wow, I'm so confused.

 

[Nothinman]

# /etc/init.d/rc.firewall (will this work? Or do I have to tell it to run or something?)

Just creating that file doesn't do much, you have to tell it which runlevel to start and stop it in. You enable a script for a certain runlevel but putting a symlink to it in the /etc/rcX.d directory, X is the number of the runlevel you want it in. symlinks starting with an S are started by being passed a parameter of start, K are kiled by being passed a parameter of stop, they are executed in the order of the numbers after the letter. Debian's default runlevel is 2.

#ipchains -P (policy) forward DENY;
is saying "forward policy is DENY all" .. why do I want to do this?

That's the default policy, anything not matching a rule gets that.

#ipchains -A (append) forward -i (interface) eth0 -j (jump) MASQ;
is saying "Forward to interface eth0 and masq" right?

Anything coming in on eth0 will be forwarded and masq'd.