sharing an internet connection
 

My Linux box is a pent 166Mhz non MMX 64 Mb ram 4.3 gig hard drive 3Com 3c905tx PCI internal NIC. My windows 98 box is an AMD K6-II 400Mhz 64Mb ram 3.2 gig hard drive 56k US Robotics software modem no NIC installed. My question is can I network the two computers so the Win98 box dails up and shares it connection with my Linux box? Belkin makes a USB NIC that (if I understand it right) will plug into the USB on my Win98 box and will essentially be the same as an internal NIC (I believe it was 10/100 Mbs). I'm very new to all of this and I want to get my Linux box online. If you know of a website or a book that I can purchase that will help me on my quest please let me know. Also if I need to I can buy a modem but I don't have a clue where to start. I've heard software or winmodems won't work in Linux. I don't won't to buy things that I don't need and would like to use the NIC's and other hardware that I already have.

I guess you could say that I'm trying to do it as cheap as possible as this is for my personal use only.

Bubba169

Sure you can, I don't recall if Internet Connection Sharing is included on 98, I think not. But you should be able to locate something that will provide that for 98. You can pick up a cheap NIC (usb, pci, whatever) and a crossover cable and connect both. The cable will probably cost more than the NIC.

On the other hand, Linux has everything you need to share an internet connection built in. I have a 95(the kids), 98(the wife), and my main Linux box connecting through an old p200 running Rh7.2 and it works like a charm. Dial on demand with a 20 minute timeout. The BSD compression Linux uses is much better than what Windoze uses too.

I'd consistantly get around 3.5 kbytes/sec with Windoze, and more like 5 kbytes/sec with Linux.

That way you can surf out to gibson research and have it 'probe my ports' with a Windoze box and it looks like a locked down Linux box ;)

COOL :D

I think I will probably go with the USB NIC for my Win98 box and go that route.

Also if it matters mine Windows 98 is second edition

Now I'm getting the cart before the horse cause I don't even have all the hardware yet but what do you mean by 20 min timeout? Can you reccomend a book on networking?

I'm real new to this networking and Linux I have all ways been a single computer home user. I mean I have worked on networked computers before (at work) but I haven't ever built my own network. I love a challenge and I know I can do this (with help from everyone else of course).

Thanks
Bubba169

Hi Bubba169,

Go for it! My setup is using an old pc running RedHat 7.2 as a firewall / internet geteway. Any time the firewall box is up and any of the other PCs on the LAN tries to access the internet it dials the connection AND logs on all by it's self. Then after 20 minutes of inactivity it hangs up.

I just decided to get busy and do that one day, after several days of searching the help sites and finding next to nothing while very frustrated I took a look in /etc/ppp/scripts I think it was and a couple of hours later had it working ;).

Actually I did find the IPTables firewall script I started with in pretty short order, but the dial on demand scripts was another story. Little did I know they were on my hard disk ;).

I'm afraid I can't offer up a good networking reference, as far as a book goes. It's actually not difficult, and setting up your 2 machine network ought to be pretty easy.

I have the makings of a help file for that setup I can email it to you if you have email turned on in your profile. Otherwise shoot me an email, and I will reply with the setup.

A couple of other things that I just thought about

1.) Will I need a Hub?

2.) Will I be able to share a printer also?

I have a complete Win98 SE box printer,modem,etc. and I don't want to have to buy 2 printers 2 cd burners etc., etc., etc.

Thanks, Maybe I can help someone else one day.


Bubba169

Win98 Second Edition come with Internet Connection Sharing, but I think it only work with Windows boxes. Yeah, cheap modem(usually Winmodem) won't work with linux, I bought a external modem 2 or 3 years ago just for my linux box to go online.

No, you won't need a hub if you get a crossover cable. That limits you to the two pcs though.

Yes, I think you will be able to share the 98's printer. Look into Samba, you will want the client half to do that.

You're welcome, we all gotta start somewhere ;)

That's the idea behind boards like this, some of the newbies pick Linux up pretty well and drop back in to help the new newbies. It's cool to be able to help folks out w/ Linux. I'd like to tell the world about Linux from the rooftop.

I don't run Windoze at all at home anymore, my 1300 Athlon box is 100% Linux. The wife & kids run it, but I've got the wife dual booting finally. I get plenty of Windoze at work, I even turned on xmouse. I love being able to scroll the window behind the one I'm editing in for reference

Windows 98 SE supports connection sharing, this will be no problem. It is more or less a form of proxy server. You can also get winproxy or one of the other proxy programs from tucows. the ones that allow up to three clients are freeware.

Just setup the default gateway in you routing table and setup your resolv.conf file.

Thanks for the info I don't know I will get to do this (soon I hope) but as soon as I can get the hardware I'll start.

Thanks again

Bubba169