Hi all,

I have a Linux Networking problem that is driving me crazy. I am no expert with regards to either Networking or Linux, but I would not say that I am Linux or Network inept either. Still, this problem has been bothering me for weeks now.

I have Mandrake Linux 9.2 installed which (is supposed) to act as a Print Server and as an Internet Gateway for two Windows 98 machines.

As of right now, Linux is configured with a static IP address: 192.168.0.1, and a SubNet Mask: 255.255.255.0.

Linux uses DHCP to assign IP addresses to the Windows 98 machines in the range 192.168.0.251 - 192.168.0.259. This seems to be working just fine as my Windows 98 machines usually end up with ip addresses 192.168.0.252 and 192.168.0.253.

The Windows 98 machines also see that Linux is the gateway because on boot, they are assigned a Gateway of 192.168.0.1.

With that setup, when I dial in to my ISP with Linux, both Windows 98 machine can connect to the Internet with no problems. Everything works -- web, email, telnet, ftp, etc...

However, what I don't understand is why I cannot ping Linux from Windows or Windows from Linux.

If, from the Linux machine, I try "ping 192.168.0.253" I get "Destination Host Unreachable". From either Windows 98 machine, "ping 192.168.0.1" yields that same result.

Furthermore, in my Windows 98 Network Neighborhood, I see a workgroup called MDKGROUP, but when I try to browse to it, I get "Computer or Share Name not found."

My ultimate goal here (besides ICS) is to share the printer connected to the Linux machine with my two Windows 98 machines, but I would imagine that if I cannot even ping successfully, I'm not going to have much luck with file and/or print sharing. (And indicentally, the printer does work directly from Linux, so at least that part of the battle has already been won).

Still, it boggles my mind that ICS works even though ping does not.

If you can offer any suggestions on how I can get ping working, or more importantly, how I can get my printer shared, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
-Steve

If, from the Linux machine, I try "ping 192.168.0.253" I get "Destination Host Unreachable". From either Windows 98 machine, "ping 192.168.0.1" yields that same result.

in your /etc/hosts file you should specify the IP addresses to hostsnames(netbios)
like so:
# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.1.100 lanhost.localdomain lanhost
192.168.1.101 lanhost.localdomain lanhost
192.168.1.102 lanhost.localdomain lanhost

I do believe, that the MDKgroup, is a samba share, but when using shares with samba,
make sure your shared folder is being shared with a certain workgroup.(netbios)

\\WinXPname\SharedDocs <-------Win XP LAN shares
\\LinuxPCShostname\ <-------------- Samba Shared folder address


So basically if I ping lanhost.localdomain I would be pinging 3 hosts.
If I want to ping individual computers on the LAN, I use the IPaddress not name.