I have a very basic home network set-up consisting of two computers each running a recently installed and unconfigured Slckware 10.1, connected to each other via an 8-port switch and new network cables. I've been trying to get the two machines to talk to each other but so far failing miserably, why? Here's what I've done so far:

I have those two machines on the network (but once it's up and running I plan to add two or three more), the faster one which will eventually be the server is called templeofthebeard while the slower one is called shrineofthebeard. The network itself, for want of a better term, is called homenet. Neither of these is yet connected to the Internet so until I get them going my connection is via <cringe> an Win XP laptop </cringe> which has no connection (yet) to the Slackware boxes. I've created a directory called /home/public on templeofthebeard (the server) which had global read and write privileges which I want shrineofthebeard (the client) to be able to access. The /etc/hosts on both machines looks like this (minus commented lines):


127.0.0.1 localhost

192.168.0.1 shrineofthebeard.homenet shrineofthebeard
192.168.0.2 templeofthebeard.homenet templeofthebeard


I've run "netconfig" on both machines and given them the data listed above and also told it that there are both connected via static IP, the netmask is 255.255.255.0 (though I have no idea what this actually means), have no gateway address, and are not using a nameserver. Then I ran "ifconfig" on both machines. The client reported this for eth0:


Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:60:6E:36:DE:94
inet addr:127.0.0.11 BCast:127.0.0.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xda00


As well as an entry for lo. Note that the inet addr:127.0.0.11 comes from an earlier attempt to get the machines configured when I tried to call them 127.0.0.10 and 127.0.0.11 before discovering that they should be numbered 192.168.... On the server the output is very similar except that the line starting "inet addr:" is missing and TX bytes is given the figure of 1180. Does this mean anything in particular? Other than that this seems to mean that the hardware is running and configured and as all the relevant lights show up on the switch I *assume* this means that the hardware is configured correctly. Now what?

Up to now my main info source has been "The Official Guide To Slackware Linux" at http://www.slackware.com/book/. Any other books and HOW-TO's I found were all either distro-specific or assumed I was connecting my computer to the Internet, which I will be but not yet. So now we're up to the section "The /etc files" in chapter 5. I changed /etc/hosts as listed above, /etc/inetd.conf, /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 and /etc/rc.d/rc.inet2 didn't seem like they needed any configuration so I left them as the default while /etc/resolv.conf now looks like this on both machines:


search homenet
domain homenet


So the next chapter told me I needed to have the services portmap, nfsd, and mountd running on the server. I tried "ps -A" and did not find any such entries and typing the names directly into bash gave me a "command not found" error. So after a brief search with the locate command I found and ran rpc.portmap, rpc.nfsd and rpc.mountd so they do now appear in the list when i type "ps -A". I'm *assuming* that these are the equivalent files. Next I added the following line /etc/exports:


/home/public


which is the directory with global read/write privileges on the server. At this point in the manual the mount command is used, so presumably everything should be configured correctly and fully set-up. Granted, most of what I've done so far is "paint-by-numbers" style without really understanding what I'm doing with some "I hope this works" guesses thrown in for good measure. Let's see how far I get. I then created a directory /home/public on the client machine and typed "mount -t templeofthebeard.homenet:/home/public /home/public". The result:


mount: can't get address for templeofthebeard.homenet


And this is where I've been stuck since. Note that I've been through this whole sequence several times and have done numerous searches through websites and various books to find ut what's wrong but most of the time they assume that your trying to set your computer up as a gateway or web-server and the "Home-Network-mini-HOWTO" is Red Hat specific - I got as far as being told to edit the file /etc/sysconfig/network, found there was no such directory on my machines and stopped right there. I also tried "ping 192.168.0.1" and "ping 192.168.0.2" on both machines and got "connect: Network is unreachable", this is as far as I got on the "Newbie's Guide to Small Home LAN" from LinuxQuestions.org. Help, I've run out of ideas. Sorry if this posting is a bit long but I wanted to be sure I included all the relevant data and I don't know enough about networks to tell what's relevant and what isn't. So please, apart from being a clueless idiot, what am I doing wrong?

set ip adress like that(the last numbers are important)

*PC 1(windows for example)
- ip address : 130.100.100.10
- netmask : 255.255.255.0
- put workgroup value to HOMENETWORK(could be something else)

*PC 2(slackware for example)
- ip address : 130.100.100.11
- netmask : 255.255.255.0
- in samba configuration(i suppose you know about it)
smb.conf or via a gui put workgroup value to HOMENETWORK(could be something else)

syntax to mount a share
if you don't want to use ip addresses check /etc/hosts to alias the pc name like you did.

check your firewalls on both machines and you are done.

>set ip adress like that

Where exactly?

>- in samba configuration(i suppose you know about it)

No, but I'm only using two Slackware boxes right now, no Windows as yet so I don't think I need Samba.

>via a gui put workgroup value to HOMENETWORK

Command-line only, the X-server on the server is broken and I'm not too worried about getting it fixed right now.

>check your firewalls on both machines and you are done.

I have two virgin, default Slackware 10.1 installations so I don't think I have any firewalls running. How do I check?

set ip adress like that Where exactly?

if i remember the utility is called netconfig or something like that, but you could also do a text configuration somewhere in /etc/rcX.d. i don't use suse or slackware.

>- in samba configuration(i suppose you know about it)

No, but I'm only using two Slackware boxes right now, no Windows as yet so I don't think I need Samba.

if you know that you don't need it, maybe you don't need it, this is what i use for linux to linux or windows/linux with my cable.

>via a gui put workgroup value to HOMENETWORK

Command-line only, the X-server on the server is broken and I'm not too worried about getting it fixed right now.

if you know how to use pico, vim or emacs it is all good, who cares about X :-). i put the workgroup value in samba configuration...who cares about samba anyway :-)

>check your firewalls on both machines and you are done.
I have two virgin, default Slackware 10.1 installations so I don't think I have any firewalls running. How do I check? [/B][/QUOTE]

use iptables command
man iptables

i use firehol as firewall front-end and never touched the raw linux firewall iptables.

sleepisforwimps,

This excellent little HOWTO got my network up & running in no time:

http://web.onetel.net.uk/~showerail/...net_setup.html

Yes, it is aimed at Mandrake users, but the basics of networking (which this is) tend to be the same across different distributions. I suggest you take a look at it, and just do as it says. Worked for me.