is it possible for 2 computers behind a router to talk directly or do i need vpn
 

hi,

i've got an unbranded (conexant chipset) but totally great wireless router feeding my 2 ubuntu laptops. can they talk together and share files or do i need to look into the arcane world of vpns?

why would you need a vpn? can you ping one from the other?

Can they ping each other;
Then add them to /ect/hosts here is mine for one boxThen make sure you have the hostname's and domainname's set up right

Thanks for the response.

A ping (to 10.0.0.12) was successful. One problem I think I have is that both laptops have been given the same IP address by the router which also means my cheap'n'nasty attempt at sharing with myself via nicotine failed. Would I be right in assuming they would need different IPs for anything to work?

I thought I was pretty cool with Linux, a quick trip here usually solves all my problems, but I am ENTIRELY out of my depth in the esoteric world of networking...

the router gives both the laptops the same ip? how do you configure the router?

Could you post ifconfig on both box's?

DHCP (I believe...warned you i was out of my depth)

I would have RTFM but it's in a badly translated technical language that is about as easy to understand as Finnegans Wake...

Can you define your own ip addresses on standard conexant routers? If so how do you avoid giving them numbers that are claimed already (or have clever protocol designers figured that out already?)

If I did manage to reassign IPs would it be as simple a matter as adding the details to hosts.allow (a file I have fiddled with in the past - particularly when I was a Fedora user and you need to tweak it before things work ok). If it was added to hosts.allow, would I be able to set up simple shared folders between the 2.

To be honest I only need this share for one thing, and it's the only reason I still have a windows partition on the other laptop. I backed up my MPs a few years ago on a mates XP machine with a DVD burner. I relaxed the UDF rules to allow for illegal characters (or whatever the right phrase is) and only windows can read the discs. Properly burned UDF discs still work so it's not UDF that's the problem just my wretched Nero-relaxed ones. I need to copy them onto the XP partition then get them onto my shiny new linux laptop (which I don't want to tarnish with M$ filth). So near to being M$-free, yet so far...

(interestingly the new Nerolinux can actually read the files but I cannot extract them in any way)

you have to be able to change the settings for your router somehow. is there an ip on the bottom? try (in a browser behind the router) http://192.168.0.1 (or whatever the router ip is) does it give you a menu? you should be able to turn off dhcp. if you give the machines ip addresses in the range for private lan use like 10.0.*.* or 192.168.*.* you should have no conflictions unless another machine on your network uses the same ip.

coz of my problem I'll have to send them from their prospective boxes. First up is the laptop I want to copy TO:

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:98:D6:30:5A
inet addr:10.0.0.4 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:98ff:fed6:305a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:20939 errors:54 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:15034 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:20922534 (19.9 MiB) TX bytes:1011406 (987.7 KiB)
Interrupt:17

Will send the one from the dual-boot (eurgh) laptop in a mo...

...and from the other:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:A0:CC:DF:37:EF
inet addr:10.0.0.12 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2a0:ccff:fedf:37ef/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:816 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:884 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:459534 (448.7 KiB) TX bytes:131917 (128.8 KiB)
Interrupt:19 Base address:0xcc00


For all I know it might not be DHCP. I know people posting here should gather as much info as possible so not to waste all you kind-folk's time but I am for the first time in years entirely lost. Like I say, I can figure out things out in Linux - hell I even have just graduated to writing my very own shell scripts !?!?! but Networking, oi vey...

you have two different IPs: 10.0.0.4, and 10.0.0.12. to "talk" to each other, transfer files, etc. you'll need some sort of protocol: telnet, ssh, ftp, nfs, etc. there are lots of ways, it just depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it.

Hi again,

I can get access to the modem/router. I use bulldog (8MB - phwoar!) and you have to get your own kit and install yourself. I had no internet access and have never used ADSL (I was cable before) but it was easy enough to configure and I got it up in working in a minute. It's just there doesn't seem to be a VPN subsection unless they're using their own proprietarily named equivalent.

Apparently the router is a 'conexant hasbani' and a quick scan at google reveals all sorts of problems with tunneling (if indeed that's what I want to do)

me again...

I appreciate all your help and advice but I think the problem is I'm giving you a load of garbled details coz I don't fully understand what I'm looking for. Perhaps now is the time to take out a mortgage and go on a networking certification course so I at least speak basic networking lingo. In the meanwhile I might see if there's such a thing as a Linux Laplink

Look at /etc/network/interfaces and you will see how you are connecting
then look at /etc/resolv.conf you will see your modem there
You are most likely using dhcp but I am sure there is a way to keep the same address.
This is not really addressing what you want to do as synaptical already said just some background info for later, later

you don't need to mess with vpn or tunneling any of that. as johnson_steve already said, all you have to do is disable DHCP (or make it static) and then assign IPs to each computer. strictly speaking you don't even need to do that if you don't want to, it just makes it easier if you always know what the IP of each computer is going to be. it would be anything from a PITA to a disaster to have a server keep getting a different IP every time you rebooted, or the router got reset, or the lease expired or whatever.