Hey. I'm attempting to get two kde linux systems to network togeather with cross over cables.
I can ping both machines and they are both running on fully updated kernals but only the host has the ability to run any type of internet access.

Any tips on how to get both machines running?

It sounds like you want them to share an Internet connection, though you haven't said this explicitly.

If this is the case, the host needs to have iptables configured for Network Address Translation (NAT). A decent article on doing that can be found here:

http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/showtopic17714.htm

You likely have everything set up except the iptables rules, in which case all you need is:

iptables -A FORWARD -i eth1 -o eth0 -s 192.168.0.0/24 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE


If that doesn't work, please mention which distribution you're running, and try following the rest of the steps in the article.

If by you mean that from each machine you can ping the other one, you don't have an issue with the physical connection. (If you only mean that you can ping the local machine, that only means that the local interface works.)

My guess at this point is that the kernel is not instructed to do forwarding on the 'host', which is covered in the article referenced earlier. I'm guessing that you are calling the host the one connected to the internet.

Note that to use the various iptables rules mentioned, you may have to modify the ip adresses to suit the adress ranges that you use, if they are different from the ones quoted (or change to the ones referenced in the very small print at the end of the article, assuming that those are available to you).

Alrighty. Yes I was asking about an internet connection. I was able to astablish it for awhile seeing as it didnt have a gateway.
Well a new problem has arrived. Last night the power coard was ripped from the tower and upon rebooting it I found that the client can no longer see my host at all...

Any changes that you made to get it working may not remain persistent across a reboot. If you just used iptables, for example, these rules go away on reboot. Most distros have a way to define iptables rules that should always exist, as well as other network settings. You can also put any relevant commands you want to run in /etc/rc.local, and they will run every time the machine boots.