I'm trying to share my AOL dsl connection with my linux machine (roaring penguin doens't want to work on debian but works on redhat) and am having some problems.

I installed two nic cards that work, set it up so the NIC that connects to the DSL modem is sharing the connection and the "home networking connection" in properties is set to NIC2.

The problem is, once I set the linux machines IP address to 192.168.0.2 and add that to the routing table I'm able to ping between the windows and the linux machines but I'm unable to get connected, lynx gives me an error of "badly formed address" whenever I go to a webpage.

I don't know where to go from here, the same process has worked when I used redhat 7.2 as the client and windows XP as the server before. Now that I'm on debian, itdoesn't seem to be working.

any help would be appreciated.

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I don't see how that's going to help my problem, linux is the "client" machine, it needs to get access, not give.

are you able to ping an ip address on the internet from the linux machine??? what about a domain name???

No i can only ping windows and watch as the lights on the HUB flicker.

then it would seem it's an issue with your windows "router"...

I don't know what you're talking about... Nothing is using a "router", I'm trying set up the machines where windows is the server: one NIC goes to the dsl, the other goes to the LAN, and the computers connected to the hub pick up the connection.

This always works, when the clients are windows or redhat, but debian doesn't seem to want to pick up the connection.

ummm... well if you're not using a router to share the connection, then you must be using a proxy... in which case you wouldn't be able to ping the internet from the lan anyways... are you sure you have the client configured to access the www through a proxy???

Are you talking about internal routing tables in windows XP?
That's the only way I can make sense of your post.

Windows XP uses ICS, this was implemented at windows 98, basically it makes windows the "host" or "server" computer while sending the other "client" computers access.


If you're talking about hardware, a large percent of the home network pouplation uses hub instead of routers, and they don't use proxies, that's totally unneeded.

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_ics/

heres an explanation of Windows XP ICS so you can brush up on it.

"ICS client computers can use XP's Internet Gateway to monitor and control the server computer's Internet connection. If you have a dial-up connection, you can connect and disconnect when deciding whether to enable ICS."

Now you'll know for next time.

Have you checked your routing table ?
Your default gateway may be incorrect.

"a large percent of the home network population uses hub instead of routers, and they don't use proxies, that's totally unneeded"

okay let´s get one thing clear: the internet is made up of routers... you need a router to connect to it... they are fundamental to tcp/ip over the internet... even if you have a proxy server, it needs a router to connect to the internet... the router may be in your locality or at your internet service provider, but IT´S THERE.

routers and hubs are totally different things...

proxies play a critical role in making the web work BETTER... AOL, for example, uses HUGE proxy servers to make things faster by saving huge amounts of bandwidth and DOLLARS by cacheing terabyte after terabyte of world wide web objects...

anyways, in your case, your router is your windows box... and the router for your windows box is the router AOL assigned to your connection... the linux boxes on the lan must use the windows box as a GATEWAY... A GATEWAY IS A ROUTER.

and since you dont connect TO a router but THROUGH it, it isnt really a server, its a ROUTER.

do as Mathieu says and check if your linux box is set to use 192.168.0.1 as its gateway...

route

or

route -n

if it´s not, then

route add default gw 192.168.0.1 eth0

use ifconfig and make sure you have everyone with the same netmask...

http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/route.8.html

http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/ifconfig.8.html

also make sure your /etc/resolv.conf points to the correct dns server(s)... if not you will only be able to ping ip addresses on the internet but not domain names on the world wide web...

I thought you were talking about the a hardware router, router hardware makes things easier as it just splits the connection.

Hubs are used for simple LANs and are less expensive. I doubt it's any internal problem though because windows 98 SE can pick up the connection (and also distribute the connection), so can redhat 9, only debian doesn't work.


route -n shows that everything is correct, the gateway is set right, the genmask (netmask for class c network), etc.


I'm not sure what /etc/resolv.conf should be set to, so I set "icarus" (computer name) to 192.168.0.2 and windows can ping it, it can't ping "icarus", just 192.168.0.2.


Also, ICS apparently uses DHCP but dhcp is installed on my computer.

does the linux machine obtain ip automatically or you just assign an ip address to it ?

I'm assigning it an Ip address, I think that might be the problem.

When i boot debian, debian has the ip address of 192.168.1.1 with the wrong information, i think assign it to 192.168.0.2 and the computers can talk to each other.

I thought if i set the gw route and the routing tables it would work but no such luck, however after I set everything (set the address, set the gateway of 192.168.0.2 to 192.168.0.1 etc.) I get this now:
lynx
g
www.google.com
(looking up google)
(unable to connect to remote host)