Hi,
I am trying to make a small network (5 machines total) that should be able to see each other over an ethernet switch. The purpose is to have one machine act as an NFS file server for the others.

I think I know how to set up eth0 manually, something like:

# ip address add dev eth0 192.0.0.1/29

and similarly with 192.0.0.2/29 on another machine. If I do this with the machines linked through an ethernet cable, I can ping from both. But if I connect them to the switch I cannot.

Do I have to set up gateways or one machine acting as a router for this to work?

Thanks for your help!

Stefano

There are a few unknowns here, but if you put 5 PC's in the same subnet, you do not need a gateway or a router, as all the traffic is local within the subnet.

Unknowns:
1. Is this a managed switch or an unmanaged switch. If it is a managed switch, you could be connecting the two PC's into two different VLANs.
2. Have you tested your cables? Make sure they are good.
3. To connect two PC's without a switch requires a crossover cable.
4. If you use the crossover cable to connect a PC to a switch, either the PC or the switch has to have "auto-sensing" ability (auto-mdix Automatic medium-dependent interface crossover) to convert the wiring configuration to standard Ethernet.

1 members found this post helpful.

Ah! There was in fact a bad cable, I should have noticed that one of the link leds on the switch was not lighting up.

Thanks for prompting me to check, now things work.

---------- Post added 09-17-14 at 01:49 PM ----------

Ah! There was in fact a bad cable, I should have noticed that one of the link leds on the switch was not lighting up.

Thanks for prompting me to check, now things work.