I took a dive into the Linux pool two days ago by installing Kubuntu 6.06 from a Live CD. Within an hour or so my plodding Fujitsu P2040 with 700 MHz Transmeta Crusoe chip was transformed into a useable computer from it's previous sluggish Windows existence! I am very, very impressed!

However, I have yet to be able to get internet access either at home (ADSL) or at work (Ethernet). In both cases I am successfully connecting to Windows XP machines using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). In both cases I can see and access shared Windows drives. However, no internet (yet)!

I'm trying to figure out the correct settings in System Settings > Network Settings. At work the ICS machine has two network cards, one connecting it to the ISP, and the other to the network hub. The ISP card uses a DNS of 10.91.0.1 and a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0. The LAN card uses a DNS of 192.168.99.1 and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.

Under the Network Interfaces tab I've got an IP address (automatically assigned) of 192.168.99.7 with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 using DHCP protocol. To my understanding, it looks perfectly fine. On the Routes tab I wasn't sure what IP address to enter. I've put in 10.91.0.1 since that's what the WinXP machine has.

The real mystery to me is what should be entered under the Domain Name System tab. I've tried a number of things and nothing seems to make a positive difference.

I have tried pinging various addresses: ping 192.168.0.1 gives me "Network is unreachable" (the same goes for any other internal address). Pinging 64.233.167.99 (google.com) gives me the same result. However, when I enter "ping google.com" I get "unknown host google.com".

Type iwconfig and iwspy. Copy+paste both lists onto here. Then you can prob get a lot more help.

Made a misread nevermind edited it and deleted it

I'm certainly new to all this, but I can't imagine what good posting what is apparently wireless info here (besides, since I have no internet connection, I can't exactly "cut and paste"!)

Here goes:
iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

iwspy
lo Interface doesn't support wireless statistic collection

eth0 Interface doesn't support wireless statistic collection


Hope someone can soon help me! The OS is great, but without internet connection I can't do much!

Unless I've completely misunderstood, you appear to have set you gateway to the DNS server used on the ISP side of your ICS PC, is that correct? If so that's the problem.

Your default gateway IP should, from the sounds of it, be set to the LAN IP address of the ICS PC. DNS should be set-up through DHCP so you shouldn't have to worry about DNS server IP addresses, especially since your LAN DNS server should be configured to forward any DNS requests it can't fulfil.

Have you had a chat with any of your networking techies who should be able to tell you how you need to configure your network settings?

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I did goof with on the Routes (gateway) tab. I had 10.91.0.1 at first, but corrected it to 192.168.99.1. I can ping other computers on the network, but still no internet!

Unfortunately there are no "networking techies" here except me (and I'm not very techie when it comes to networks!

It seems that everything is okay--Kubuntu picked up all the settings automatically, all I had to do was enter the correct gateway. I don't understand what could be wrong!

Are other PCs on your LAN able to connect to the Internet? If not, is the ICS PC set-up correctly? I.e. is IP forwarding enabled, is there a Bridge between the two NICs? If other PCs are able to connect, what are their network settings?

Does that mean your LAN DNS servers IP address is 192.168.99.1 or that the IP address of the LAN NIC on the ICS PC is 192.168.99.1?? (Or is the ICS PC acting as your DNS server as well???) You need to set your DNS server to 192.168.99.1 and your gateway to the IP of the LAN NIC on the ICS IP, not your gateway to the DNS servers IP, unless of course they are the same PC.

Also you say you can ping PCs on your LAN, presumably by domain name? That would prove your LAN DNS is working, if you can't ping external websites, i.e. www.google.co.uk, by domain name then DNS isn't resolving external domains to IP addresses, if that's the case have you tried pinging by IP address, i.e. www.google.co.uk resolves to 219.239.59.147 so try pinging that. If you are able to ping by IP then you are connected to the Internet fine and it is simply a DNS issue, in which case you need to set up a forward on you DNS server so that it will forward any DNS requests it can't fulfil. If you can't ping external IP addresses then it must be an issue with the ICS PC.

Hope that helps!