I'm a kinda-newbie with Linux, and am having trouble getting my 2 pc's to talk to each other. One is a Linux Mandrake 9.1 box, the other a WinXP notebook. Both can access the internet through my wired 4-port Linksys router and cable modem (via NICs).

I am new to Linux networking, and am a bit confused by all the parameters in netconfig, not to mention ShoreWall. (I intend to try GuardDog when I get a chance.) I suspect that ShoreWall is preventing it. I've been to ShoreWall.net, and am having trouble keeping up with all the config files/parameters.

Here is what I know about the two systems and their network-related setup that may be pertinent:

Router: 192.168.1.1
DCHP: "on", router as server
Modem: 192.168.0.1

WinXP: 192.168.1.100
Def. G'way: 192.168.1.1

Linux eth0: 192.168.1.101 Bcast: 192.168.1.255 Mask: 255.255.255.0
lo: 127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0

My 'nix box dual-boots to Win98, and it talks fine to the XP machine booted under 98 abiding by share rules. It's when I am using 'nix that I can't talk to it.

I have gotten my 'nix box to ping WinXP, after setting up rule in my XP machine's Sygate firewall. I am still unable to get XP to ping my 'nix box. Even if/when I do, I'm not confident that I will be able to share files/folders at that point.

Any thoughts?

TIA...
-DM

Welcome to LQ.

Check that you aren't blocking pings. Post the output of:
iptables -L
grep "" /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo*

To share file on linux you will need to set up samba. see:
http://www.samba.org

Thanks for the welcome.

I will check and post it when I get home. I have Samba installed as well as NFS. As for setting it up, I haven't really seen how or where to do it. I must be a bit brain dead. For some reason, I get more confused than helped with HOWTO's and resident sites. Maybe because a lot of them don't really address the source of my confusion at times.

FWIW, I'm very comfortable with computers in general, just never messed with networking much. I'm not at all intimidated by the command line. I prefer DOS to Windows. I've been trying to slowly wean myself from Windows for almost two years now, and recently upgraded to Mdk 9.1. (I progressed from 7.0 to 8.0.) I'm getting there, and hope to make it before too long.

Sorry I haven't gotten back until now, been busy.

I get a lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong screen output when I do the iptables -L command, so I didn't post it here.

The grep result is shorter. It's:

/proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all:0
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts:1

I also installed and ran GuardDog. I set up a LAN zone, and specified the IP addresses of both machines, and my router. After that, I could ping normally from XP to nix, but not nix to XP....just the opposite of what I had before. I did not enable pinging from the Internet. Time to get back into GuardDog and then on to Samba.....

This could have been written by me. All those HOWTO's... I'm a busy family man, I know how Windows works, and when I install Linux I have no time to read thru 200 html-pages to study configs. My wife uses Windows XP Pro and she must get into the internet without problems. I came here to see if I get any decent help - I want to install a version of SuSE Server, and my whole Windows-LAN connects to internet through it and I use that server as my main workstation too... but I have no clue how to share the internet connection to XP clients. A tiny clue, proxy server?

I suppose you could set your box up as a proxy server but I would not know how to do it hence I have some other advice. You need to set IP Masquerading up on your machine. This will sort your problem out. And yes, there is a How To. IP-Masquerade-HOWTO which you will find at www.tldp.org. I can also send it to you if you want.

I understand your frustration with How To's. But read this one. It is excellently written, clear, step by step and will most probably solve your problem.

Hang in there. Linux is worth it.

p.n

Those HOW-TO's are all well and good, but none of them address LAN/WAN via a *router*. They address using a PC *as* a router. Therein lies my mental block. I cannot correlate "using a PC as a router" vs. "using a real router as a router". The addressing schemes and function are a bit different.

Yes, I think Linux is well worth it, too. I look forward to the day when much of my ignorance of its ways leaves me.

Is there anybody out there that has the same setup I have, and has it working?

Hello, if your router is your GATEWAY to the internet then you dont need to use NAT/PAT Network address translation/Port address translation or IP-masquerade on linux because your router is doing that for you. You just need to decide if you are going to use static IPs or dynamic (DHCP) more simple is the later. DHCP is enabled by default. If you decide to go static you have to configure your ifcfg-eth# and network files.

I use redhat 9 so the path may be slightly different but very close
/etc/sysconfig/network should look something like this

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=yourhostname
FORWARD_IPV4="yes"
GATEWAYDEV=eth1
GATEWAY=10.145.0.1

and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file should look something like this

DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=10.145.0.2
NETMASK=255.255.0.0
GATEWAY=10.145.0.1

But if your like me who is always accessing my computer from somewhere else and don't want hackers to have an easy time getting in. I have my lnx srv as my edge and use ssh to tunnel all my connections from remote hosts to local hosts. In this case you need ipmasq or something the like. If your problem is not with routing, as Dogmeats is a problem with firewalls. You dont need to have a firewall inside your private network unless you are afraid of being hacked locally. You should have a built in hardware firewall in the router/gateway of last resort? Use the ntfs permisions for xp and file/folder permissions for linux to make folders available only to certain users. I appologize if I am talking around your issues but it is hard for me to see which direction you want me to take you. There are many ways to skin a cat, so to speak. My first advice is this if you can ping in one direction and not the other disable all local firewalls and try it again. If it works there in lies your problem. Likewise with the file sharing. You can specify to allow programs through your firewall also if you very attached to them. Hope this helps.

When I did the following, I did not have my XP machine connected to the network, in case it would make a difference.


cat /etc/sysconfig/network yields:

HOSTNAME="localhost.localdomain"
NETWORKING=yes
GATEWAY="192.168.1.1"
GATEWAYDEV="eth0"
FORWARD_IPV4="yes"
IPX="no"
IPXINTERNALNETNUM="0"
IPXINTERNALNODENUM="0"
IPXAUTOPRIMARY="on"
IPXAUTOFRAME="on"


cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 yields:

DEVICE="eth0"
BOOTPROTO="dhcp"
ONBOOT="yes"
NEEDHOSTNAME=yes
IPADDR="192.168.1.101"
NETMASK="255.255.255.0"
IPXNETNUM_802_2=""
IPXPRIMARY_802_2="no"
IPXACTIVE_802_2="no"
IPXNETNUM_802_3=""
IPXPRIMARY_802_3="no"
IPXACTIVE_802_3="no"
IPXNETNUM_ETHERII=""
IPXPRIMARY_ETHERII="no"
IPXACTIVE_ETHERII="no"
IPXNETNUM_SNAP=""
IPXPRIMARY_SNAP="no"
IPXACTIVE_SNAP="no"

Hello. How's it going. Are you planning to use Novell, IPX? I don't know what the IPX statements should look like but for me I tend to copy all my files into another directory for future and then iliminate the parts I dont need. You may atleast want to #comment them out just to be sure if your not using them.

Are you you asking if having your XP machine off the network would change the files you listed? It wouldn't. Have you tested your connections without any firewalls. Check your firewall trust/untrust zone configs on the xp machine.