Help with server

[mountianman]

Hello,
I have been using linux off and on for the past 2 years, and I had a few courses on linux while in university. I do know how to setup my hardware/OS/network....etc... but what I haven't really read much about, nor do I know.. what is the best firewall/ftp/mail/etc services to run on your system. I messed around with most of the default programs, which ran decently. But I would still like to know which ones are the best.
I have messed around with with mandrake7+, slackware, debian, and earlier versions of Redhat, and am now downloading RedHat8.0, so information related to that Distro would be great.

Im running a small network consisting of 2 computers:

Linux Server: AMD 300, 128mb ram, 2 eth cards.
eth0: DSL broadband connection.
eth1: LAN(connected to my WinXP machine)

XP Machine: p3 800EB, 1 eth card.
eth: connected to Linux eth1.

What would be the most optimal way to setup up the linux server to able my XP box to connect to the internet. Proxy?DHCP?Router?

I was just considering setting up my internet on redhat, creating a gateway between my 2 eth card on my linux box. And then simply using that gateway to connect to the internet from my winxp box, will this work? Guess I will find out when I Install redhat, but any information give will be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

JaY

[jkint]

right now, I've got a spare linux box setup as a straight packet filter/router.

IMHO, setting up dhcpd for one system might be a tad bit unnecessary, unless you want the challenge, and the warm fuzzy feeling of setting something up.

RH's kernel's are pretty modular, so you shouldn't need a kernel re-compile to setup iptables/ipmasq.

there's a pretty good IPMasq how-to and mini how-to at www.tldp.org