I just recently attached a linux box running RH9 to one of the ports on my linksys router. I am trying to set this up as a server that my brother and I can use as a code repository for a program we are writing. I am not too familiar with linux other than a DeVry textbook that gives me some very basics about navigating the filesystem, filerights and such. What I am trying to do first is be able to log onto the box from my Win XP box so I don't have to have two of everything (monitors, keyboards and mice) on my desk. Right now the two computers can see eachother and i can tell that the router has assigned an IP to the Linux box because I can ping it but thats about all I can do. Secondarily, I would like to be able to get out on the net from the RH gui but am not able to right now for some reason. Anyone want to look like a big shot and help out a noob?

any reason why you are keeping RH9 instead of just installing something newer/better (slackware, centos, debian, etc.)? you might have an easier time of it later on with a more up to date OS.

regardless of whether you keep it or upgrade, you need to install and/or configure sshd on the server box. once that's set up, you can ssh in from windows with an application called putty.

can you ping the net from the RH box?

Fist of all, thats for replying to me.

Secondly:

The linux box is on loan from my office. Now, they have told me that I can bascially do what ever I want with it but I figured that I should play around with what was on it first before installing something new largely because it has Samba already on it.

I found some stuff about that and tried to see if sshd was already installed. It would be listed as sshd in the /bin directory if was on the box right?

I haven't figured out how to ping in linux yet.

sshd is most likely in /usr/sbin, and you can also do "ps ax |grep ssh" to see if it's already running. pretty sure the startup scripts are in /etc/rc.d/init.d. there's lots of tutorials on configuring ssh on LQ and the net.

but if you can do whatever you want, they'd probably thank you for upgrading it. anything new you installed would almost certainly have samba and sshd in a stock install, or else they could be installed afterward very easily if you wanted to keep the base system minimal.

It looks like sshd IS in the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory. I think I will play around with it but can you tell me how to ping in linux?

you just open a terminal and use the ping command, e.g., "ping google.com" (edit: ctrl + c to stop it, or else use the -c option, as in ping -c 3 google.com).

p.s. note that the sshd in /etc/rc.d/init.d isn't the binary, just the startup script.

now have access to the box itself. Thanks for that tip. It looks like sshd was already set up or else I accidentially did something right. Interestingly (or not depending on your experience level) I tried to run the gui from the putty window and it started on the linux box monitor but I guess you cant run the gui remotely through Putty. I still cant get out to the internet from the linux box however even though it has been assigned an IP address from the router.

did your office have a firewall set up on it? i think you can check as root with iptables -L , unless RH9 didn't use iptables yet and still ipchains, in which case i'm not sure how to check it. any firewall or settings on the router that could be blocking net access?

afaik, you can't run the linux gui through putty, but you could run gui programs from another linux box through ssh with X forwarding. so that might be useful if you wanted to log on from another linux box somehwere. there's also other ways to do virtual desktops, etc. but i'm not too into that as i don't really find any need for it.

and the only thing I cold think of was the mac address filtering but I had thought that was only for wirelessly accessing the network but I was wrong. I added the Linux box ip to the table and bingo! I now have access to the interweb through the Linux box. Now all I have to do is figure out how to give my brother access to it and how to turn it into a code repository. Thanks for the help so far, I really appreciate it.