Mac Pro as Switch/Router

I'm having a difficult time with VPN and the Airport Extreme Base Station. Some searching suggests, that older ABES, basically suck at VPN passthrough. Before I go out and spend a couple hundred dollars on a new router, or smart switch, I'd thought I'd at least confirm that is the case. I've tried 2 different VPN servers, a Windows Server based one, and the Mac's. They work for a couple minutes, and then stop responding, until I reconnect.
So, long story short, I want to try using the Mac Pro, which houses most of the services, as a "router" (internet comes in via one gigabit NIC, goes out the other NIC to the main switch (dummy switch, not capable of routing)) to provide the rest of the office internet. What kind of settings do I need to enable? Net Sharing? What about services that don't run on the Mac Pro - How would I accomplish Port-Forwarding in this case? And what about the AEBS? It still serves a purpose at the very least to provide wireless access.
Any help or suggestions would be great.

IP routing works by having and knowing a local route within the current subnet, and by sending all other packets out via the default route via the default NIC. This might not be the NIC you want, and which can lead to packets that misrouted and never get acknowledged, and all the ensuing "fun". Static routes override that, and cause traffic to be sent to the specified subnet via the specified NIC.
You'll need to look at the static routes that are set on the target dual-NIC box (the path off that box), on the VPN (via Server Admin), and on the client end of the tunnel (which can, for instance, bypass the VPN).
To see where routing sends the requests:
route get host.example.com
or
route get w.x.y.z
or (for everything)
netstat -nrl
Here's the basic command for establishing a route:
sudo route -nv add 10.0.0.0/8 10.x.y.z
Depending on the context, the interface can be necessary. (eg: append -interface en0)
The command to add a route needs to be invoked at each startup, too. There are various ways to perform this, but you can create a small bash script and register it via launchctl. (You'll likely need to look up the launchd and launchctl syntax; I know I do.)
Or you plug in a firewall/VPN/NAT box, and (since you're usually not establishing IP sessions from directly on the firewall) let it figure all this stuff out for you.

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