2.3. Enabling Packet Forwarding

By default the FreeBSD system will not forward IP packets between various network interfaces. In other words, routing functions (also known as gateway functions) are disabled.

If your intent is to use a FreeBSD system as stand-alone Internet workstation and not as a gateway between LAN nodes and your ISP you should skip forward to Section 2.4.

If you intend for the PPP program to service the local FreeBSD box as well as LAN workstations (as a router) you'll need to enable IP forwarding.

To enable IP Packet forwarding you'll need to edit the /etc/rc.conf file.

This file contains overrides of the defaults in /etc/defaults/rc.conf. The default gateway setting is controlled by the line

    gateway_enable="NO"

in that file. To override it, add a line like

    gateway_enable="YES"

/etc/rc.conf.

NOTE: This line may already be set to 'gateway_enable="YES"' if IP forwarding was enabled when the FreeBSD system was installed.