I have a Mandrake 9.2 box sharing an internet connection with a Windows XP machine (no hub or switch, just peer-to-peer). It works fine, I can do everything on the Linux box (print, surf, etc.), but I'd like to be able to use ssh to connect to my Mandrake box.

I'm just starting this, and other threads have shown me some things to try to get the local setup working (like installing openssh-server), but one thing I have no idea on (I'm fairly new -- ran a Red Hat box for about a year until my Mandrake install a couple of months ago (starting with RC1)) is how to connect to my Mandrake box if I'm not at home.

I want to be able to run ssh on another computer and log in to my Linux box. I don't even know where to start -- what would determine the IP of my Linux box? Will I have to run anything weird on the Windows XP box?

Your switch, router or hub determines the IP, if you did no configuration out of the box.

Youll want to set a static IP for each of the systems sharing the internet connection.

Then youll have to set up a port forward at the router to forward all connections to port 22 onto the actuall IP of the Linux box you want to connect to when you're not at home.

The reason you have to port forward is that you can't connect to a 192.168.*.* address (which is what your switch or router divies out to your computers)

192.168 is non routable. So you would enter the ip of the MAIN ip that the switch is grabbing from your cable modem (or whatever device) then when it gets a connection at that address and realizes its on port 22, it will forward it to the machine that you tell it to.

Your linux box says hello, your ssh shakes hands. password:

Could I get the XP box to forward all port 22 connections to the 192.168 address of the Linux box? At least, is there any reason why that wouldn't be okay from the Linux side of things?

Yes you could, but then you would have to set up forwarding on the XP box. You would also need 2 NICs on the PC. One for incomming from the world, and the other to connect to your inside network. You will need PC Router software as well. If you do a search on the net you could probably even find software of this nature for free.

Your best bet (for security) is to find something that everyone uses though, perhaps something with firewall built in that way your XP box is a firewall/router to make your Linux box hardened. Save all your important docs to your linux box as a fileserver with network sharing

I already have two NICs for that reason -- no hub or switch, just a DSL modem (technically a router but with only one out) connected to the XP box, and the other NIC connected to the inside network.

Thanks for your help -- I'm on my way, I think -- XP seems to have some minor port forwarding ability in its built in firewall, so I'm going to try that out (getting sshd up was really easy).

And done! It already works great! I just had to set my Norton Firewall to let the external PC in and set XP's Internet firewall to forward port 22 to the linux box.

Thanks.