Hi,

I'm pretty much a n00bie at mandrake 10.0 so excuse me if i've not posted enough info or this is the wrong forum.

Okay, I've basically been trying to set up an internet gateway and web server box which connects to the internet via a speedtouch 330 alcatel adsl usb modem with PPoA. I managed to install mandrake 10.0 with the default settings and get the internet working without too much difficulty with a script i found online.

I basically want to connect 2 other machines to the linux server, which is a windows xp gaming machine and a laptop running mandrake 9.1 which i use for my college work for programming.

What ive been trying to do is share the internet to the other machines but ive had no luck. I've followed some tutorials online but just gone round in circles, i've also had problems getting the machines to ping one another as I set my subnet to 192.168.0.x, where 1=server, 2=xp machine, 4=laptop.

The ICS wizard in mandrake 10 didnt work and the internet stopped working until i rebooted it. What I would like to know is, if theres some commands I can add to the shorewall configuration files to get this working without too much hassle? I mean I've come this far and would love the chance to stop using windows, if only I could get the internet sharing working.

Appreciation in advance from anyone who could help me

If you really don't want to take the plunge into doing iptables manually (which can be hard) then look at Firestarter. It can configure that, and it may also configure it right. Before you try that, maybe you could post the errors you get when the shorewall is up and running.

Cheers for that info blueplazma. Sorry I didnt post more info!

I will connect up the linux box again later on and get some output to post here. What would be the best commands to pop in for this?

Cheers.

J.

Hi,

I've tangled with Mandrake 10's internet sharing wizard, and it seems to make a real hash of things, as well as over-complicating the setup by installing the Squid proxy server and a DNS server...

To sort things out, I'd recommend you get rid of Mandrake's installation completely and start again:

(i) Remove Mandrake's Shorewall firewall completely;
(ii) Either remove, or disable at start-up, Squid and BIND DNS server.

Go to Shorewall's website and download a Shorewall RPM (I used version 2.0.8). There are comprehensive instructions and sample configuration files available on the website, too - well worth downloading to speed up configuration. If you follow the instructions, you should be up and running without too much hassle. You might need to tweak which services you want to allow - eg, ICMP (ping), SSH, etc.. Oh, and one other tip - you'll need to issue the --nodeps switch when you install the RPM, because Mandrake names its installation of IPTables differently to what the RPM expects..

Hope this helps!

I'd be looking to see if you can ping the linux machine from another machine, if the linux machine is able to contact an outside server (like Google), if the Linux machine has an IP address. Those are a few things. I'd check to see if changing the default INPUT policy to ACCEPT instead of DROP if that changes it's connectivity or whatnot. If it really does mess around with BIND and Squid it's being too complicated, and you should use something else. I doubt that you need to run your own DNS and proxy for 3 computers. The HTTP proxy could be useful later down the road if really feel adventurous, but not necessary now. I recommend doing what kevinatkins recommends, since he seems to have used this before.

Cheers for your helpful advice there guys! I will reinstall it again on my server and start from scratch as I fear the playing about with trying to get things running has probably mangled up iptables big time. I'll also investigate the firestarter app as well over the next few days and let you know how I get on.

If I still can't get it working after that i'll post my config's. I've just found out that my laptop is working fine and pingable from my existing windows gateway (which i'm hoping to replace with linux) so hopefully I dont need to mess with the settings on this? Just the linux server itself?

Thanks again!

J.