ok people heres the state of play with what i've got going. SuSE 6.4 ppp dynamic ip I have configured the firewall script in rc.config.d to match that of example2 that is available in the EXAMPLES FILE. START_FW is on so everything is started at boot time. One thing i have noticed is that it mentions that i dont have a local DNS running, which is confusing but thats in the example so i left it in and it doesn't return a failure at boot time so....... I have another test linux box on the network which is set to use the server as the gateway. The firewall log file logs every packet from the network but the masqing doesnt work if i try to ping the servers dynamic ip address i get nothing. What have i missed guys? ive even tried configing from the masqurading how-to and I cant get that to work either? My brain currently resembles a fried chicken!!!!!!