hi all. i need to configure my LAN. i have installed RH linux 9.everything went fine during installation but while configuring network, i couldn't understand the concept of hostname and netmasking. i read about giving ip addresses and kept it as 192.168.3.250 for my server. all other pc's in the network have windows installed in the local machine.i need to work through telnet.(dont worry, not connected to outside world) and all the ip addresses in the windows machine have ip's 192.168.3.xx
my question is -
1. how can i configure my network.(there is no problem in the hardware and the network)
2. what ip addresses should i give for the server and the hostname and the netmask, gateways, etc.
3. what entries should i put in the /etc/hosts file? what is hostname for pc's which have windows installed?
4. how to check whether telnet is working or not.

thanks in advance.
Nishchaya
Bangalore, india

if you are not connecting to the internet, then you can stay with the 192.168 range of IP's:

What I'd do:

192.168.0.0 --> "network" IP address (reserved)
192.168.0.1 --> "gateway" IP address (not reserved, but leave it for future use.)
192.168.0.2 --> linux server

192.168.0.20 to 192.168.0.253 --> use for windows PCs.

192.168.0.254 --> "gateway" IP address (not reserved, but leave it for future use.)
192.168.0.255 --> "broadcast" address (reserved).

This way, you keep some IP's (3 to 19) for adding more servers and knowing they are servers, and you keep all PC's at the range 20 to 253.

If you get dhcp to work on the linux server, you can let it hadle assignment of IP address for PC's automagically for the range you provide (i.e. 20 to 253)

You can set the mask on all machines to 255.255.255.0
NOTE: If you use 192.168.3.X instead of 192.168.0.X for the machines, and a mask of 255.255.255.0, then note that using a 192.168.0.X will not mix well with 192.168.3.X IPs
and viceversa.
Consider the third 255 as a constraint for the IP to mix when the third element of the IP changes.