Maybe one of you networking guru's out there can help me, I am having problems with my network, it is a peer to peer network with the desktop (win XP), my laptop (win xp) and my second desktop (Red Hat 7.2), I cannot get the win box to ping the Linux box or vice versa. I'm not sure where in the network is the problem, here is my setup info.

my 'route' displays this ....
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
192.168.0.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1
127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
Default 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

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When i type /sbin/route add host dev eth0 ---- it replies
"host: Host name lookup failure"

My NIC's are configured with a static IP

My windows box has the folliwing settings
ip - 192.168.0.165
subnet mask - 255.255.255.0
default gateway - 192.168.0.1

the windows box is settup using DHCP, i use ICS / DSL so I can't set a static ip on my two windows box's

Can you ping the linux box from the linux box? Can you do the same from the win boxes? Are you using a hub/switch to connect the boxes together and have you checked the cable connections. I know these seems like trival questions but sometimes *not*overlooking the trivial stuff can save hours of headaches later on.

Could you also describe your network in a little more detail (i.e. layout, how many NIC's, etc). If your still having problem then we can isolate the problem.

Yes the computers can be pinged from their terminals. I am not using a hub, My win XP box and My linux box both have two NIC's in them, My Win XP network is already up n running, I am just trying to add the Linux box in the middle. The Win XP desktop is hosting the DSL, my laptop is the ICS client for it, hence I have to use DHCP to assign ip's to them. The two NIC's in the linux box have static ip's. The cableing is all correct

I assume if your not using a hub or switch then you are using crossover cables between your machines.

Do ifconfig on eth0 and eth1 to double check their IP's and make sure that they are on the same network address and netmask. I'm not to familiar with route, but it appears that it only gives out network addresses. Also, try to configuring DHCP on your linux box. That way you don't have to worry configuring IP's and netmask.

Ok, I set up DHCP on eth0 ion my Linux box and that works fine, I can ping windows box 1 and access the internet, I can't use DHCP on eth1 so I'm assuming that I can staicly set eth1 with an ip/mask/gateway and then my 2nd windows box which is the last computer in the network will be able to recieve DHCP settings. Is this correct?

Yes, you will have to statically assign an IP to eth1, however, you will have to configure it as a router if you want anything to connect to it and be able to connect to your ICS host through it.

Reference to a page to configure a simple router?

http://www.linuxguruz.org/iptables...thanks to Noerr

1.) route add dev eth0 (is missing the most important part --network) what are you going to route on dev eth0
you go for ie
route add -net 192.168.1.0/24 eth0
or
route add default gw 192.168.1.1 eth0

btw
iptables won't help you before you setup basics (routing)

my mistake...sorry

Should the default gateway be the IP of eth1? - 192-168.0.1

You can use anything IP you want just as long as it is in the same network address as your clients. With the exception of X.X.X.255 of course.

usually you put gateway to be the first ip in class (192.168.1.1, 192.168.132.1 ..) but it's not necessary