Setting up a small home LAN

ccin1492 · 06-25-2005, 03:37 PM

I need some help setting up a small home LAN. At the moment, there's only two pc's on the network but I plan to maybe add one or two more pc's in the future. All are, or will be, running SuSE linux.

I know at the very least that I need to add the same users to both pc's and edit the /etc/hosts file on both pc's, But somehow I don't think this is it. So if someone can give me just some quick pointers, or point me to a webside that I can read, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance for you help.

Oh, and I did search this forum as well as the other web sights but couldn't find quite what I'm looking for.

J.W. · 06-25-2005, 04:45 PM

Since the question is more about networking than it is about Suse, you might want to ask that this thread be moved to the Networking forum, which may be suitable for this question. (Just click on the "Report this post to a moderator" link, and ask that it be moved.)

That being said, can you provide more detail about planned network? Will it be using regular cable, will it be wireless, or will it be a combination? Are all the PC's in the same room or are they throughout the house? What functions will the PC's have - typical desktops, print servers, file servers, web servers, firewalls, etc? The better detail you can provide, the better advice people can offer. Good luck with it -- J.W.

ccin1492 · 06-25-2005, 05:17 PM

Thanks.

It's a simple network using cables. The pc's are vanilla desktops located in seperate rooms. Each pc does have it's own printer, but it would be nice if I could eventually set up so that any pc can access any printer. Oh, and I have the firewall enable for both pc's. Hopefully that's not a problem.

XavierP · 06-25-2005, 05:29 PM

As requested (and advised), moved to Networking.

ccin1492 · 06-25-2005, 05:46 PM

And one more detail: the pc's are connected through a router.

titanium_geek · 06-25-2005, 08:19 PM

check out this link:
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/#Linux%20Main

from personal experience, you want to have a star topology.

have fun!
titanium_geek

ccin1492 · 06-27-2005, 10:45 PM

Ok, maybe I need to simply my question.

I have two pc's sitting behind a router. Both are running linux and connections to the internet. I can ping one from the other, but for some reason I can't ssh to one from the other. I have a firewall enabled on both pc's. Could this be stopping me from ssh? If not, then what else might be the problem?

Thanks.

Artik · 06-27-2005, 11:46 PM

Defenatly firewall may cause a problem.
To use ssh you need port 22 to be open.

Do you have an option to enable firewall in your router?
It probably would be better to use Firewall in router only and disable local firewalls (unless you want to protect one PC from other)
If you'll want to setup different things like Samba/NFS/CUPS/XDMCP etc... you'll need to open ports for each one... So for home LAN it is better to setup external firewall in router (if you can) and disable internal

ccin1492 · 06-28-2005, 12:04 AM

Artik, thanks! That was it. The firewall on my router is enabled so I guess over doing the security just a little.

titanium_geek · 06-28-2005, 09:51 AM

yep- it does help to explain exactly what you are asking, because other wise it sounds like a)you are a complete newb and need to start at the very beginning(a very good place to start) or b) people don't know what the heck you are talking about and then give you broader replies.

next time- remember to state what you want to know in the question- as well as posting details about your situation.

titanium_geek

ccin1492 · 06-29-2005, 04:13 PM

Yes, my first post was really not phrased properly. Again, thanks to you and Artik for replying and trying to help.

Best Regards.

guldo · 07-27-2005, 02:42 AM

Hello

I'm replying to this thread for a similar issue.
I'm trying to get a small home lan.
I have two pc (desktop+laptop) which I'd like to connect.
I've bought a cross rj45 cable; here's what I've done so far:
(on both)
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
(192.168.0.2 on the other one)
then I've checked the routing table, that's like this:

Code:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination	Gateway	Genmask		Flags	Metric	Ref	Use	Iface
my.isp		*	255.255.255.255	UH	0	0	0	ppp0
192.168.0.0	*	255.255.255.0	U	0	0	0	eth0
default		my.isp	0.0.0.0		UG	0	0	0	ppp0

(I have a sub adapter to connect to the internet through ppp0)

What should I do next? I mean, the two pc do not ping each other.

Thanks

maroonbaboon · 07-27-2005, 06:14 AM

If they don't ping each other (using the given IP addresses) maybe they are both running firewalls on their eth0 interfaces, as earlier in the thread.

Once you have them in communication you need to configure the desktop PC (?) as a router, tranferring packets to/from the laptop between eth0 and ppp0. This is usually done with 'iptables'. There's plenty of tutorials on this, e.g.

http://yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTu...rkGateway.html

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/home-router-howto.xml

Maybe there are even packages these days which will automate the process. Incidentally I think the default route on your laptop should be the router machine.

guldo · 07-27-2005, 02:50 PM

Thank you for your reply.

After a reboot, I did
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
on both PCs (192.168.0.2 for the other one), so that the routing table is:
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
on both PCs.
I also ran
/etc/init.d/iptables clear
and
iptables -L
to be sure that all policies are set to ACCEPT, on both PCs.

They still do not ping at all.

Looks like I'm missing some piece of config...

maroonbaboon · 07-27-2005, 10:27 PM

Are you sure that's really a crossover cable you're using? Did it come packaged and labelled?

I'm not sure how you tell the difference (apart from the fact that one might work and the other not).
My crossover cable is red, but somehow I don't think that is a reliable test