I am very new to linux and am really confused. I am using ubuntu. My internet connection goes through a PPPoe and I have managed to set that up by some miracle as i don't know what i did to get it to work but it does.

Now i am wanting my XP machine to see the internet connection on the ubuntu machine just like XP uses the internet gateway.

Any suggestions?

did you have a look at the LQ wiki pages?

welcome to LQ by the way :-)

Thank you...

Ok looked through the WiKi and did find some help but not enough.

What i have done now is setup firestarter and have set it to be a gateway, but still can't get xp machine to see the internet connection... am guessing that the gateway is only for other linux machines? the other thing which i think might be the problem is that the setup which i have is that ubuntu machine has only got one network card... do i need one for internet connection and one for the rest of my lan?

you should have all the hardware you need... i assume.... i gues you have a nic per pc and a switch? or a cross over cable.

when you do
cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
you must get the output 1
if not do following:
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

check your firewall, run
iptables -L FORWARD
if the default plicy is DROP and you have some rules listed, chance it to ACCEPT and remove the rules you do not need currently - you can always narrow down things later on, but for the initial setup leaving it open shoudl not be tooo harmful:

iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
iptables -F FORWARD

make sure your linux and xp pc can talk to eachother, ie: ping works from both pc's to the other.

try accessing the net.

i haven't tried the last one you told me as i am at work now and will try it as soon as i get home this evening.

my network setup is as follows... i have three pc's, each have one nic. Each pc and the pppoe goes into the switch. Before i had the exact same, just with the one pc connecting the internet and the other two seeing the internet from it. now am trying to get the same pc to hold the connection to the internet and the other 2 to use the internet. i have been told to get squid but my understanding of that is i will only be able to browse from other pcs then. i am wanting full internet access from all the machines, so that i can use p2p programs from the windows machines.

i'm wanting to make sure that what i am trying is possible... will the windows machines see the linux gateway for internet usage?

i was pinging each computer lastnite and was working fine... can ping windows machine from linux and linux machine from windows.

Ok i am home now and have tried the last thing you told me to do.
when i typed "cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward" it did give me "1"

the policy was set to drop so i changed it to accept... i can ping both pc's with eachother but still can't get the XP box to see the internet through the Ubuntu box....

any more suggestions?

what is the ip address of the ubuntu box, post an ipconfig /all from the xp box

root@Pawley:/ # ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:27:7B:EE0
inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::290:27ff:fe7b:eed0/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2770 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2618 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1251702 (1.1 MiB) TX bytes:414763 (405.0 KiB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:19430 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:19430 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1546965 (1.4 MiB) TX bytes:1546965 (1.4 MiB)

ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:192.168.93.180 P-t-P:10.11.11.201 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:1971 errors:2348 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2175 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:1135736 (1.0 MiB) TX bytes:350802 (342.5 KiB)

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there isn't a thing such as ipconfig in ubuntu is there, well it didn't work anyway, am guessing you meant ifconfig.

do you have msn? if so i can give you my email then maybe we can try sort this out on there?

will be checking this forum often now

what is with the
ipconfig /all
form you xp pc

things are getting really scary here... have messed with setting for long time now and all of a sudden things are working here. am accessing internet without a problem from my xp box through my ubuntu box. have no idea what i have done!

thank you for your help don't know what did it but atleast it is working, am running firestarter aswell

do you know of any thing that i can use to monitor my connection?

if you don't mind, if you have msn messenger, will you please add me to your list as i have other questions aswell, my email for msn messenger is pawley84@hotmail.com

thank you

that is great... i am glad it is working now.
a good idea now is to take a backup of your /etc/ directory:
tar -cvzf /root/etc.bac.tgz /etc
so whenever you have to do this again - you can compare things with your 'old' config.

i will not add you to msn (dont really even use it) but the main reason is that you are at the right address here, you will get most professionall help concerning you problem.
you post to the right category, give your thread a good title, and whoever sees it, and believes to be able to help will read you thread... i generally have a look at a lot of the '0 reply threads' and 'latest threads' and get an email of 0 replyes every day... do i guess i will come accross your thread if i think i could be of any help.
sorry mate, but that is how the things work here... :-)
hope you understand that