Ok If I explain what I am trying to do it might help.
Have just recently installed MDK 9.1. I have an Adsl connection for the internet (ppp0) and and Ethernet card for the local network (eth0) which is all connected up to a ccouple of windows boxes.

I can get Dhcpd working on linux and the windows machine connects ok to the internet.

However I am confused about DNS servers. I thought that the Linux box can have ppp0 set to receive both ip and dns from my ISP but that I could set it so the Linux box would do all that for the windows box.


Also I cant ping the linux box (ip 10.0.0.x/255.255.255.0) from the W2K box I get:
'reply from 194.106.32. 59 destination net unreachable'

which is confusing as I'm pinging 10.0.0.x

Also I cannot connect to the Linux box from W2k and I think I have smb.conf set up ok eg

[global]
netbios name = TheLinuxServer
server string = "Is It working yet?"
workgroup = WORKGROUP
security = share
log file = /var/log/samba.log
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
encrypt passwords = yes
wins support = yes

[smbuser]
path = /home/smbuser
public = yes
guest ok = yes
writeable = yes

I have a user on both machines set up as smbuser.

I would be really grateful for any help with what might be several little problems battling with each other.

Thanks

You do need to use samba for pinging services. If indeed you have dhcp working, then you can either enter your isps nameservers manually on the windows box or add al ine like this in /etc/dhcpd.conf

option domain-name-servers server.name.isp, server2.name.isp;

And to tell connecting machines that the Mandrake machine is being used as a router (if indeed it is)

option routers eth0.ip.of.mandrake.box

~Andrew

I am not sure about your situation but I think you have the linux box connected to the adsl modem and it has one other ethernet card which is connected to a router and then the rest of your machines connect to this router. You did not mention a router though but I dont see how you could connect more than one computer to the linux box without one. If that is the case, the ISP should provide the linux box with the DNS server and external IP. If you can surf from the linux box, then this is so. If you have another router (other than the linux box) in the network, make sure its dhcp server is disabled. With that, then you can configure the rest of the machines to use dhcp to get their IP address and DNS info from the linux box. In the linux box, there should be an option in /etc/dhcpd.conf to broadcast this dns address (actually this address should be pointed to your linux box, but using the dns address supplied by your isp should work also). If you are using static internal IPs for your lan machines then you must setup a default route for each of them to the linux box.
You dont need samba to ping machines in your local net. You need it to setup shares which other machines can use. For example, you can set up a part of your linux hard drive as a samba share so you can access that hard drive from another machine that uses the smb protocol. If you have not setup any shares on your linux box then there is nothing to connect to. SWAT is a very good program to use to set this up.
If your machines are networked properly, then you should be able to ping each machine using its IP name unless the firewalls block this. If your are using the linux box as a dhcp server and are sharing the internet connection between all your boxes, then you probably have IP masquerading setup in the linux box and probably a firewall . Make sure that the ethx interface connected to the rest of the lan is setup as a trusted interface so all connections to and from this interface are allowed.
Hope this helps.