OK I have a computer downstairs with windows ME (parents computer)
and my computer upstairs that is running Fedora Core 1. I have been trying for 2 days to get the internet up and running on the upstairs computer. The way it has always been setup is that the windows computer shares the internet connection through a linksys 5 port hub. But after looking at the system closer this doesnt make sense to me because the wME computer only has 1 ethernet card and if I tell the ME computer it is sharing an internet connection from another computer it works fine even though there is no other computer in the network that has internet access. So I am assuming that the Hub must be working as a router. The last time I installed linux on my computer I installed either mandrake 8.2 or 9.0 and it automatically setup everything for me during installation. This didn't work this time when I installed Fedora or previously when i had tried installing mandrake 10.0 community or 8.2 again. I can't find the 9.0 disks either. But I have tried everything from manually setting up IP to using DHCP and everything I can think of my computer just will not connect although the ME one connects fine. The only thing I can think of is my ethernet card has gone bad. Anyone have any other suggestions?

any ideas anyone? I still have no clue what else to try

the hub is not working as a router. the windows machine is acting as a router through the configuration of ics. how does the windows machine connect to the net? what is the output of

ifconfig

from the fedora box?

providing that the windows machine is setup for ics, you should be able to assign a static ip address to both boxes, and point the fedora box default gateway to the ip address of the windows machine.

dont know about the ifconfig because im downstairs right now ill check it out in a bit.

I just thought that the windows machine needed to ethernet cards to work as a router. But if it is working as a router why would it be that it can access the net if i tell it it is sharing internet from another computer. As in it should be trying to access net that another computer is sharing.

I think i have to pay extra for static IP's though. Both computers have always just been able to access through DHCP that is why I was wondering if maybe it was the ethernet card in mine.

The cable modem is hooked directly to the hub though not to the windows computer.

Any further help would be appreciated.
and ill go up and get that ifconfig info in a couple minutes

also if I just hook my computer straight to the cable modem line that should tell me if it is the ethernet card shouldnt it if it still cant get an IP through DHCP? or do i need to install DHCP-client? would that help?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TribeX
dont know about the ifconfig because im downstairs right now ill check it out in a bit.

I just thought that the windows machine needed to ethernet cards to work as a router. But if it is working as a router why would it be that it can access the net if i tell it it is sharing internet from another computer. As in it should be trying to access net that another computer is sharing. [/QUOTE

you are correct, i was under the impression from the lack of info that you were on dialup and sharing the connection via windows.

forget about the static ip's we are talking 2 different languages, when i say static ip, i am speaking of the nic itself, not the internet connection. you shouldn't need to do that since your connected via cable which is "always on".

i'll try to help you through this, but, you've got alot of network reading ahead of you. i am going to try and point you in the right directions.

not necessarily, if your system is not setup properly, and, there could be a # of things not configured properly, you wouldn't be able to tell whether you had a bad nic or not. the ifconfig info will shed more light than anything.

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:20:78:1B:0D:18
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1777 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:109722 (107.1 Kb) TX bytes:1710 (1.6 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xc000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:4501 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4501 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3833158 (3.6 Mb) TX bytes:3833158 (3.6 Mb)

have a look here

http://support.microsoft.com/default...icsHT.asp&FR=1

and here

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Networking_basics

thanx for all the help im in linux now typing this I finally figured it out today. Not sure if its going to continue working after I turn on the downstairs computer though :S. Ill probably be back if i need more help. What I did is turned the other computer off and assigned this one its IP. I tried assigning this one a diff IP but it didnt work it was like xxx.xx.xx.56 and i tried .57 and it wouldnt connect so I had to set it back to .56 so im not sure what the other computer is going to do once it figures out this one is using it's IP

The issue is that you are only permitted one IP address from your ISP. You can get around this by enabling Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) on the WinMe system (NOT RECOMMENDED) or getting a "broadband router."

What will happen is that you will have your cable modem connected to the WAN side of your router. The router should be able to get a DHCP address from the cable modem. It will then share that internet connection to the LAN which will have a private IP address scheme (192.168.x.x , 10.x.x.x, etc.)

Internet
|
|
Cable Modem
|
|
Broadband Router
|
|
Hub__________ Computer 2
|
|
Computer 1

The method you are using would work if you ISP allowed you to have multiple public IP addresses.

Side note... right now both of your machines probably have live public IP addresses. This is a HUGE security risk. Read up on IP Tables for your linux box and download ZoneAlarm for WinMe.

Cheers,

MrKnisely

well my computers have been connected through the hub like this for about 2 years. So I'm pretty sure im allowed to have 2 ip's. Not positive though im not sure about how exactly the network was set up. Because it was setup for the win(ME) to share its internet connection but I don't think it ever actually did. Because It only has one NIC and the cable modem is directly connected to the hub. Both computers have always been able to use DHCP to connect to the net until about two weeks ago when teh upstairs one just magically stopped getting an internet connection.

What probably happened before is this:

The WinMe system was setup to use ICS. It was "dual homing" it's NIC to have the public IP from your ISP and also to use 192.168.0.1 for the LAN connection. When you enable ICS on a Win box it also starts a DHCP server. Your box upstairs probalby just got a DHCP address from the WinME box and you routed your traffic through the 192.168.0.1 subinterface and then back out the ISP subinterface.

Why it's not working now, I'm not sure. We can try to make it work if you'd like. As I said before, I don't recommend this solution.

If you do want to try it, enable internet connection sharing on your WinME box and make sure you can still get to the internet. Next, go to your Linux box and try to run ifup eth0 . Check to make sure you got an ip address in the 192.168.0.x range. If you did, try to get to the internet. If it doesn't work, type route and verify that you have a line that says something like:

destination gateway genmask more stuff.......
192.168.0.0 255.255.255.0
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0
default 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0

If you do not have the last line type:
route add default gw 192.168.0.1

Now see if you can get to the internet. If not, try to ping 216.239.37.99 (one of google's IPs). Did that work? Try pinging google.com... any luck ther?

If you can Ping IP and not name then it's a DNS issue, and this will fix it:

echo nameserver 192.168.0.1 >>/etc/resolv.conf

If you can not ping a name nor an address then it's a routing issue with your WinMe box and we need to do more work there.

Again, I strongly suggest using some sort of a broadband router instead of the WinMe box, but we can make it work with what you have.

Cheers,

MrKnisely

well one other reason i dont think it was using ICS is because I could connect while the ME computer was turned off. As far as I have ever read if the ME computer was sharing its connection i should only be able to connect while it is on. It just doesnt seem to be able to access the DHCP is there anywhere to input the DHCP server address that I get from winpicfg on the win ME computer.

Sounds like perhaps your IPS has gone to filtering DHCP requests by MAC address. You might try spoofing the MAC address of your ME box's NIC on your Linux box to see if it will give you a second IP that way.

A quick search will give you the command, I can't recall it and I don't have a *nix machine here to look it up.

my linux machine complained that that wasnt the right MAC for the card when i tried that

Turn off internet connection sharing in your ME box. You said you connect fine when the ME box is not on. What is probably happening, is the ME box is serving you up an IP address instead of the router.

Internet connection sharing is to use the ME box as a router. One way to use it is have the ME box dial up to your ISP, while other computers network to the ME box through ethernet, say. But that's not what you want to do.


Rufus