From the original IPMASQ HOWTO author:
"As a new user, I found it very confusing to setup IP masquerade on the Linux kernel, (back then, its was a 1.2.x kernel). Although there was a FAQ and a mailing list, there was no documentation dedicated to this. There was also some requests on the mailing list for a HOWTO manual. So, I decided to write this HOWTO as a starting point for new users and possibly create a building block for other knowledgeable users. If you, the reader, have any additional ideas, corrections, or questions about this document, please feel free to contact us. "
This document was originally written by Ambrose Au back in August, 1996, based on the 1.x kernel IPMASQ FAQ written by Ken Eves and numerous helpful messages from the original IP Masquerade mailing list. In particular, a mailing list message from Matthew Driver inspired Ambrose to set up IP Masquerade and eventually write version 0.80 of this HOWTO. In April 1997, Ambrose created the Linux IP Masquerade Resource Web site at http://ipmasq.webhop.net which has provided up-to-date information on Linux IP Masquerading ever since. In February 1999, David Ranch took over maintenance of the HOWTO. David then re-wrote the HOWTO and added a substantial number of sections to the document. Today, the HOWTO is still maintained by David where he constantly updates it and fixes any reported bugs, etc.
Please feel free to send any feedback or comments regarding this HOWTO to dranch@trinnet.net if you have any corrections or if any information/URLs/etc. is missing. Your invaluable feedback will certainly influence the future of this HOWTO!
This HOWTO is meant to be a fairly comprehensive guide to getting your Linux IP Masquerading system working in the shortest time possible. David only plays a technical writer on T.V. so you might find the information in this document not as general and/or objective as it could be. If you think a section could be clearer, etc.. please let David know. The latest version of the MASQ HOWTO can be found at Dranch's Linux Page. Additional news, mirrors of the HOWTO, and information regarding IPMASQ can be found at the IP Masquerade Resource web page. If you have any technical questions on IP Masquerade, please join the IP Masquerade Mailing List instead of sending email to David or Ambrose. Most MASQ problems are -common- for ALL MASQ users and can be easily solved by users on the list. In addition to this, the response time of the IP MASQ email list will be much faster than a reply from either David or Ambrose.
The latest version of this document can be found at the following sites which also contains HTML, Postscript, PDF, etc. versions