Ignorance plays are large part here, but I want to access to my local computers via a router (tanda W06R) without involving a WAN. This maybe impossible without involving WAN. If I pull out the cable from my provider (Virgin) will I still be connected to my router via cat5 cables, and if so, how do I identify the different places?

It sounds like you want your LAN to operate independently from any WAN. This is entirely possible, and is done somewhat routinely. You may find that you will need to replace one or more services that you silently got from the WAN, with LAN-hosted services. If this is what you want to do, you can give quite a bit more detail here of you need assistance in getting your LAN 'off the grid'.

--- rod.

Essentially, yes. This is a home 'network' and I want to communicate from one wired computer to another via a simple router(Tenda w306R), preferably not having the data going via the WAN. I have used samba shares to connect with Windows machines but you should not need to do that between Linux machines. Can I link addresses between directories via the router? A read out of ifconfig and a bit:

fred@fred-desktop:~$ sudo ifconfig -a
[sudo] password for fred:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:30:67:00:e7:64
inet addr:192.168.0.100 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::230:67ff:fe00:e764/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:22899 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5976 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:12882538 (12.8 MB) TX bytes:851993 (851.9 KB)
Interrupt:27 Base address:0x8000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:184 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:184 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:22180 (22.1 KB) TX bytes:22180 (22.1 KB)

fred@fred-desktop:~$ traceroute 192.168.0.101
The program 'traceroute' can be found in the following packages:
* traceroute
* traceroute-nanog
Try: sudo apt-get install <selected package>
fred@fred-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install traceroute
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
fakeroot debhelper intltool-debian libdatetime-locale-perl
libparams-validate-perl g++-4.4 po-debconf libstdc++6-4.4-dev g++
libmail-sendmail-perl clamav-testfiles gettext cvs libdatetime-perl dpkg-dev
xz-utils libdebian-package-make-perl html2text libipc-run3-perl patch
libdatetime-timezone-perl liblist-moreutils-perl libclass-singleton-perl
libsys-hostname-long-perl build-essential
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed
traceroute
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 52.2kB of archives.
After this operation, 184kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get: 1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main traceroute 2.0.13-2 [52.2kB]
Fetched 52.2kB in 0s (176kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package traceroute.
(Reading database ... 176156 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking traceroute (from .../traceroute_2.0.13-2_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up traceroute (2.0.13-2) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/traceroute.db to provide /usr/bin/traceroute (traceroute) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/traceroute6.db to provide /usr/bin/traceroute6 (traceroute6) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/lft.db to provide /usr/bin/lft (lft) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/traceproto.db to provide /usr/bin/traceproto (traceproto) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/traceroute-nanog.db to provide /usr/bin/traceroute-nanog (traceroute-nanog) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/sbin/tcptraceroute.db to provide /usr/sbin/tcptraceroute (tcptraceroute) in auto mode.

fred@fred-desktop:~$ traceroute 192.168.0.101
traceroute to 192.168.0.101 (192.168.0.101), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 patti-desktop.local (192.168.0.101) 0.116 ms 0.082 ms 0.083 ms
fred@fred-desktop:~$ ln -s
A LAN alternative would be better.

Fred.

In ordr to share files, you still need to use a network filesystem share. As you have already seen, SMB/CIFS (Samba) is one option, but in Linux the more common option, and I think simpler to use, is NFS. Conceptually, the two network filesystems are quite similar. A server is configured to share one of its directories, and clients mount those shares on the clients' filesystem. The Linux NFS Howto has details on stting up both cleint and server components of NFS.
Alternative to what? The distro repository? You can configure your package manager to use either a DVD set, or you can set up a local repository, using the contents of a DVD distro. The methods vary from distro to distro.
Your traceroute output shows that the optimal route to '192.168.0.101' is already being used.
The networking facilities in Linux do not really distinguish between LAN and WAN concepts, other than LAN address spaces like 192.168.xx.xx. It is all a human perception. You still need to employ the same networking infrastructure; only the scale changes.

--- rod.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks, I will read the documentation. One question, if I installed the server software and identified two directories on different boxes to each other would they still be connected to each other if I took out the feed from the Virgin 'modem' or does it go over the 'net' and back to your next box?

Fred.

If the networks stacks are correctly configured, no traffic destined for LAN hosts ever leaves the LAN. In most, if not all distros, the installer is smart enough that the correct configuration is the default.
--- rod.