Mandrake 9.2 box can't be pinged by network but is connected

I've got a problem I've certainly never seen before. I set up a fresh install of Mandrake 9.2 (I'll update later) and actually reinstalled several times because I initially thought this had to just be some kind of install bug.

The part of my network this concerns currently has 3 machines on a hub with a wireless bridge. The bridge connects to the wireless router (wirelessly of course), which goes to the outside world through a cable modem.

I have one machine running Win XP Pro, one is Win 98SE, and one is Mandrake 9.2. I'm using the linux box as a web server and ssh server primarily (or trying to). I had some strangeness when setting up: namely that it only connects to the network and the internet in DHCP mode. As soon as I try to use a static IP, the machine doesn't want to play nice anymore (regardless of whether I use the wizard or manual config through editing eth0). It won't connect to other machines or to the internet. So as a temporary fix (hopefully), I set up a virtual eth1 with a static IP. Now it works fine (but it's taking up 2 IP addresses ... not a huge issue, just strange that I had to accomplish it this way).

Strangest of all, I can't ping that machine. I can't ping it from itself on either the DHCP IP address or the static IP address and I can't ping either address from any of the other machines ... but it's still running strong as my apache web server? Strange.

Because of all this (I think ...) I can't ssh to this machine from any others. The port is open, but I get the following logged output:

Event Log: Writing new session log (SSH packets mode) to file: putty.log
Event Log: Looking up host "192.168.1.104"
Event Log: Connecting to 192.168.1.104 port 22

(192.168.1.104 is the DHCP address of the linix machine, I've tried on 192.168.1.150 - the static IP - as well with the same result)

Then the window closes and nothing else is mentioned.

Is there a log on the linux side I can look at to see port activity? Some kind of snoop installed somewhere? Any ideas what's going on? Any help or appropriate manuals would be appreciated. I'm feeling stuck right now.

Is your Mandrake box running Shorewall?
You might tail -f /var/log/messages and see if ping requests are being dropped or rejected.
You may have to add a line or two to your /etc/shorewall/rules file to allow icmp ping requests.
If Shorewall is running, the machine it is on will be the FW zone.

Thank you! You've given me a great place to start. I checked out the messages log and "shore" enough,

localhost kernel: Shorewall:net2all:DROP:IN=eth0

So I started reading up on shorewall and made some changes. I can now ping 127.0.0.1 and other iterations of my own machine, as well as the outside world, traceroute works properly, etc. Now I'm left with two problems. I still can't ping this box from another LAN box and I still can't SSH into it (localhost sshd[26221]: refused connect from 192.168.1.107 (192.168.1.107))

I'm now set up as follows:
*rules*

ACCEPT  net     fw      tcp     80,443,22       -
ACCEPT  loc     fw      tcp     22,137
ACCEPT  loc     fw      udp     138,139,445
ACCEPT  loc     fw      icmp    echo-request
#ACCEPT  loc     fw      icmp    8,0      #Tried this with no luck

*policy*

fw      net     ACCEPT
net     all     DROP    info
all     all     REJECT  info
#fw      loc    ACCEPT     #Tried this with no luck

I'm trying to set up so I can be a web server (working), but also for SSH from (initially) local machines and (eventually) net machines, and will be setting up SAMBA next.

Am I as close as I feel? (the more frustrated you are, the closer you are to the answer)