Network and accessing internet via XP box
 

I've got a computer running WinXP, with a USB ADSL modem. I want to share this connection with a Linux box (currently Suse 8.2).

I've got them connected via a crossover cable, run the network wizard on XP which has set up IP 192.168.0.1 & netmask 255.255.255.0. On the linux box I've set IP/proxy options as 192.168.0.2 everywhere this is an option in Yast.

I can ping the linux box from XP, but not vice versa. I presume I'm missing something, but don't know what to do now. Any suggestions?

Um, I think that you might be better off going about this the other way around...

You could have the ADSL connection on the Linux box, set up a masquerading firewall to block out all those nasties that want to eat your XP machine for breakfast...

I know that this doesn't really answer the question, but I always feel more comfortable seeing the Microsoft boxes on the INSIDE of a network.

Cheers

I know that would be preferable - but it would be much easier this way around, both due to the usage of the boxes and the physical layout of cables.

Oops, I meant to say that I can ping the XP box from the linux one

OK, so I half solved the problem - I couldn't ping the linux box because it was going onto standby :cry:

Anyway, I can ping both ways - but I can't access the internet from the linux box. Everything seems to be set up OK on the XP one, and the static IP on linux is set to 192.168.0.2, with 192.168.0.1 as the proxy and defailt gateway. I've manually entered my ISP's DNS servers.

:confused:

OK, so I can ping the XP's ADSL gateway from the Linux box, but still I get nothign from a browser.

You said that you have the XP box defined as a PROXY on your Linux box... This will only work if you actually have a proxy server running on XP, with the appropriate permissions set up.

Try setting "do not use" proxy or "direct connection to Internet" on the Web browser on your Linux box. If it suddenly starts working, this is your problem.

I've now removed all proxy entries (guess I was trying too many things :rolleyes: )....I can ping any IP from the linux box, but neither Konqueror nor Mozilla download any page - in both cases they halt with the status bar reading "waiting for reply", or similar. :confused:

Weird. How about if you try connecting to an IP address rather than a URI?

Try: <http://66.102.7.99> - this is the IP address of one of the Google servers. If you try this and get Google, you may have a name resolution (DNS) problem.

have a look at this thread, probably every concievable problem was covered, it will take a little reading, but, by the time your finished, you'll probably have your answer.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...&highlight=ICS

good luck.

That worked - but at a glacial pace. So now I wonder if the problem isn't a physical one with the equipment I've got. How can I test that the network between the two boxes is running cleanly, beyond pinging, before I think of buying new kit? And if that's not the problem, what should I do with the DNS issue (at the moment, the XP box is getting the DNS address automatically, and I've set the Linux DNS as 192.168.0.1 - is this correct?)

I'd set the resolv.conf on your Linux box to point at the _external_ DNS from your ISP - not the XP box.

See if that speeds things up.

Changing to the external DNS doesn't help. And the thread that PEACEDOG linked to isn't dealing with the same problem - there it was getting the crossover working to ping both ways.

However, I've run pings for half an hour each way across my crossover, and I'm getting a packet loss of 40-50%, which I'm guessing could be my problem - if so, is there any possible explanation for this, other than hardware?

Um, what's the brand of network card on the Linux box? I had a similar problem a couple of years ago with DLink cards using the via-rhine.o driver. Under heavy traffic, packets started vanishing. Put the NIC in a Windoze machine, no problems. Then I just started using cards with Realtek chipsets and have never had a NIC problem since (touch wood!).

Problem solved, and yes it appears crappy hardware was the problem - setting the connection down to 10Mb/s has got it running. Thanks for the help, everyone :)