I am working with a cable modem connected to a linksys wireless access point and cable/dsl router. i have three windows machines (2 windows 2000 and one windows XP) working perfectly behind the router. I am able to perform all functions (browse internet, share directories, ping just to name a few) without any problems. However, any attempt to access my linux machine yields no results.

My RH8 linux installation is able to access the internet through the linksys device (it is a hard connection, not wireless). In fact, I'm writing this from my linux box. I have placed the windows machine in my /etc/hosts directory (and have placed the linux box in the <>/<>/<>/hosts and lmhosts file on my PC.

I took a standard installation from RH accepting default values. I later went back in and changed my linux machine from DHCP to a fixed network address behind my router. I did so for my windows machines as well.

If i ping from my windows machine to my linux machine, i receive a request timed out message. Vice versa, i recieve a response from my windows machine.

What should my domain name be? While installing, RH defaulted to localhost.domain for the domain name. I'm simply trying to place 4 machines on the backside of a router and use network address translation for to mask their IP addresses. I realize I'm probably overlooking something basic in the configuration, but appreciate any specific help such as documents referencing this type of installation.

Thanks!
mjh

your linux machine should be running a default firewall, dropping everthing. look iptablles is running, if it is then stop the service and then try to ping it again

I agree with manthram, you have a firewall running on linux. Multiple layers of security is great (the linksys router protecting the LAN and each machine with a seperate firewall in case the linksys is ever breached) but they also cause problems. I'll give details on stopping the firewall in Redhat 8 just in case your not sure how to do it:
You need to open up a terminal and change to root user, i.e. su - and press enter, then enter the root password.

You can simply do as root from a terminal:
service iptables stop
service ipchains stop

then to keep it from not starting on future reboots, again as root:
chkconfig --levels 2345 iptables off
chkconfig --levels 2345 ipchains off

You can also run the redhat setup configuration editor as root, simply type setup and press enter. Then go to the firewall and disable it.