I have a Windows XP system connecting through a USB cellphone as a modem. It connects at 1015kbps!! for 15 dollars a month and since we live in the country, it has become our primary internet connection.
I have a router and the XP and my SUSE 9.2 system both using static IP adresses.
XP 192.168.8.4
SUSE 192.168.8.3
Router 192.168.8.1
Both XP and SUSE are connected to LAN ports on the router.It has a WAN port , but i didn't think i could use it since i would be connecting a computer and not a modem.



My problem is that I don't know what to do in SUSE to get internet working. I have connected using the cellphone on the SUSE box and that works fine, but when i try to get the internet connection through the router it doesn't work.


hopefully thats clear and I didn't forget anything
Thanks

Holy Guacamole that sounds truly awesome.
Never heard of this before.

Questions: Are you using any special software on the WinBox to connect to the net using the cellphone.

Do you know if the protocol used to connect is DHCP?

Most importantly, you'll need to enable Internet Connection Sharing on the XP box. Then you should be able to get online.

I am using dial up connection manager or whatever default program XP uses to dial up. It is a dynamic IP,but does I don't know if that means it's using DHCP....

And I do have internet connection sharing enabled on the XP box , but I just tried it again and internet still didn't come up.And now, although I don't remember changing anything, I can't ping the XP box from the SUSE box, although i can ping the SUSE from the XP....It says PING 192.168.8.4 (192.168.8.4) 56(84) bytes of data. (and then something like) can't complete. sndmsg disabled.
I can ping the router from the SUSE box, and the XP box can ping itself...

So I should be ok plugging the XP box with internet into a LAN port and not the WAN port?

sorry ,that's really confusing but I don't know how to state it better.
Thanks

Oh, and just so you know, I really haven't done any software settings in SUSE. I've put down the IP, and the default gateway as the router and I tried the default gateway as the computer with internet, neither worked. But that is all I have done in SUSE. I feel like i should have some more settings to set , but I wouldn't know what they are.

Thanks

Basically what you have to set on the clients are 2 settings once you can ping the router (the XP box running ICS)

The lan IP of the router is your Gateway/default route.
I guess Suse has some GUI tool to set it, in CLI it would be something like
The way you use your router at the moment it just acts as a switch, not a router.
So what you tell your computer is to send all the packets that are not for the local lan to the internet.
Because the machine who actually acts as a router is your XP machine you use it's IP as your Gateway.

After setting this you should be able to ping internet addresses like eg 203.2.75.12 from the suse box.

Secondly your computer has to know the IP of a computer that acts as a DNS server, which means it will translate
URLs (eg www.yahoo.com) into an IP. Without this you won't be able to browse webpages.

Find out what the primary/secondary DNS of your internet service provider (ISP) is and put those 2 IPs into the right place
in the SuSe GUI tools. If you wanted to use the CLI instead you could also edit the file /etc/resolv.conf
In there put 2 lines with the DNS IPs (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy) of your ISP as follows :

After that you should be able to ping eg www.yahoo.com and browse the web.
Tell us how you went.

Cheers
Newbee

PS: You could also use the router as a router but then you'll have to setup the router as such and do some more changes.

When you enable Internet Connection Sharing, your LAN interface on your XP box automatically changes to 192.168.0.1 and it enables a DHCP server on your XP box.

Suse will need to be readdressed to a 192.168.0.X address with a Default Gateway of 192.168.0.1. DNS should be pointed to a public DNS server, or to the XP box. That should get you out to the Internet.

It is also good to note that you may be breaking the terms of service of your cell connection. I have looked into this solution through Verizon and Sprint in this area, and they both say that you cannot provide service to other machines.

Hope this helps.

MrKnisely

Can you elaborate on this? Because in this config it makes absolutely no sense to set ICS.


he has touter connected to the network and two boxes (independently connected to the router)
In other words maybe you have not understand the configuration.

SuSE NIC config:
IP address 192.168.8.3
Gateway 192.168.8.1
mask 255.255.255.0

edit /etc/resolv.conf and add
nameserver ip.address.of_your_primary_DNS_server
nameserver ip.address.of_your_secondary_DNS_server

IP addresses of your DNS you can get from windows box (or call admin)

That is all no ICS or any other magic.


forgot:
this one is wrong too:
flush SuSE routing table.

Ok, so i think i do need ICS on ,cuz i have the internet going through a computer to the router, not from a modem to a router. But anywayz ,maybe i was wrong earlier, but i REALLLY thought i could ping the XP from the SUSE, but i can't at all, i can ping every possible which way except from SUSE to XP.
so let me explain stuff over again and see if i can make it clearer

My router
IP 192.168.8.1
dhcp disabled


XP Box
ICS enabled, firewall off, USB modem with dynamic IP
IP 192.168.8.4
Gateway: i have tried blank and 192.168.8.1


I have a suse box with its settings at
IP 192.168.8.2
Gateway: i have tried both 192.168.8.4 , and 192.168.8.1
dns 68.28.82.11
68.28.90.11


with those settings, i can't ping the XP box from SUSE, but i can ping everthing else from everywhere.

sssorrry , and thanks.

so is SuSE connected to the commputer or router? In the first post you have stated that suse is connected to the router so what is it?


what is your config?
internet <-> windows <-> router <-> SuSE
or SuSe
internet <->router <
windows xp

in the first situation windows has two NICs
one with dynamic IP address connested to the internet
second cart with static adress connected to the router. So first you need to configure router so it will connect properly with windows. It is guite simple.

Anyway, if SuSE is connected to the router, then for SuSE router's IP address is gateway.
I suspect that right now you have mess instead of network connection

If SuSE is connected to the net through router then using windows IP address as a gateway makes no sense. SuSE will care less how router is connected, however if you did not properly configure router then connction will fail.

this statement only suggest misconfiguration. If windows works as a router, then for windows gateway is the external address from LAN.

you shoud have
modem <-> NIC1(dynamic IP, mask, external gateway on your LAN) -windows-NIC2 (IP192.168.4) <->router (IP address 192.168.8.1, gateway 192.168.1.4, mask) <->NIC-SuSE ip address 192.168.1.8.2, gateway 192.168.8.1, mask)
all should have DNS
68.28.82.11
68.28.90.11

Ok.
My XP box has a USB modem as its internet source
It has one NIC connected to the router
I now have its gateway to the routers IP(192.168.8.1)

My SUSE box needs to get internet from the XP computer, so I plugged it into the router. My SUSE box has a gateway of 192.168.8.1 as well now.

so i guess my configuration would be
internet <-> windows <-> router <-> SuSE
because XP has the internet connection.
Sorry if I didn't do the other stuff you said, the thing I got out of it that applied was to change my gateways to the router, which i did.
But anyways, i still can't get internet.
I think the first thing i need to fix is the fact that i can't ping the XP machine FROM SUSE but i can ping SUSE from XP.
Thanks for the patience

what is gateway address in your Windows box?

right now it is 192.168.8.1 but like 5 minutes ago it was set to nothing

this may help
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/w2kusbip.html

Thanks but i get the impression thats for connecting computers with a USB cable and integrating it to an ethernet network. Shouldn't i just be able to treat the cell phone as a normal modem, it shows up in windows XP as a USB modem, and has all the same traits as a modem or ethernet card.

i wont be back till tommorow, thanks for the help ,sorry im so difficult