Here's my prob.
I have 2 linux boxes both running Mandrake 9.2.

They're both hooked up to the same router.
How do I mount one pc onto the other in order to be able to share files and stuff???

Sorry about the basic question but with win*** it was easily done through the W*****-browser.
Pls, help.
Mike

You need to be clear about which files you wish to share. This can be a powerful technique if given some thought, or a nightmare if you have to keep tweaking it forever as your needs change.

1)It is trivial to share directories and have the "vortex" appear on two desktops. With Linux, you would create a directory on PC A. You could make it as a link or icon on your desktop for convenience. Using NFS or Samba, you can make that directory sharable with PC B. On PC B, you would have an entry in your /etc/fstab to mount that directory at boot (if both machines are sure to be running) in the filesystem on PC B. Whatever files A or B puts in or removes will be apparent on both machines. With a highspeed network, this method can be used to expand storage on B which can run short. You buy the 120 gB for A and B gets to use space on it... A very interesting application is putting your /home/yourself directory in a share. Then you login on any machine and crunch on the same old files. If you have a few users, do this with /home

2)You can also set up a webserver that would share files on one machine with others on the LAN. This is useful even if you have only one machine, just because hypertext, etc. is so wonderfully useful. You can use upload scripts to go from the client to the server, too.

3)You can set up an FTP server allowing FTP access through browsers or FTP clients.

So, there are at least four ways of sharing files readily available. With a little practice, one or the other can be set up in a few minutes. Samba can be used with LinNeighborhood which would be very familiar to users of that other OS.

Pick a method. MDK has wizards for most, if not all methods. The stuff that runs in the background doing this sharing and serving are called servers and daemons. When you can put these to work, you will feel the power. Do not be surprised when you find that these things run several times faster than with that other OS. Remember, those other guys sell features, not performance.

Option #1 is the one I was looking for.
Any suggestions how to set it up?
I went through tons of pages, but could not find any hint..... :-(
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Mike

NFS...quick easy, mostly stable. Use SSH Tunnels if you want to encrypt the traffic between the boxes.

For Linux boxes, NFS is a natural.

In Mandrake, you can set up NFS this way:

via gui , with Mandrake Control Centre:
http://doc.mandrakelinux.com/Mandrak...untpoints.html

CLI:
in /etc/exports on the machine that has the directory to be shared on its hard drive:

/home/vortex nameofothermachine(rw,root_squash)
see man exports for all kinds of options.
start nfsd
#service nfs status (to see what nfs is doing)
#service nfs start or reload

in /etc/fstab on the machine that you want vortex to be available via NFS:
#mkdir /home/vortex
nameoffirstmachine:/home/vortex /home/vortex nfs auto,rw

The first machine has to be up and running, but this will cause the second machine to magically mount the first machine's directory in the second machine's file structure. You need to set appropriate permissions. You can restrict access to the share, too. see man nfs, man fstab, man mount

I am writing this with reference to MDK docs, but I am not currently using Mandrake, so you may have to play around a bit. Good Luck.
ps This is great fun at 100 base T or better. The sharing can be as fast as a hard drive.

Check this link out.

http://shfs.sourceforge.net/

That looks interesting. NFS is notoriously insecure, but it should be quite efficient on an isolated network or one behind a good firewall so that the wrong people do not make connections. You can get some protection by authorizing only specific machines or IP addresses to use NFS services (see man hosts.allow and hosts.deny). Other approaches are https:// which tends to be one-way, though, ssh as it is and scp, or even encrypting everything that goes into the vortex with gpg.

Isn't it great to have choices?

Thanks guys.
I appreciate the help!
Got the nfs to work.
Later.
Mike