[ltp] 2 Computer Simple Network

[Matt Graham]

On Saturday 17 July 2004 11:56, after a long battle with technology, 
SOTL wrote:
> What is the simplest way to network 2 computers?

Put a NIC in each machine, use a crossover Ethernet cable to connect 
them, assign static IPs in the 192.168.1.[1-254] range to each machine, 
you're good.

> Computers are: 1 Mandrake 9.1 and 1 MS Windows 98
> Also there is a WWW DSL line and a hub currently connecting them
> together.

What do you mean "there is a WWW DSL line connecting them"?  Did you 
mean "One machine has 2 NICs, with one NIC connected to a DSL router 
and the other NIC connected to the hub"?  Also, a hub, not a switch?  I 
thought that no small hubs have been made for a few years now.  Well, 
similar principles apply.

> The hub could easely be replaced with a fire wall 

?  No, it couldn't.  You mean "I could do something like this:"

DSL line<-->Firewall<-->Hub<-->machine 1
                         ^\--->machine 2

...get your terminology right.  The Networking HOWTO and Ethernet HOWTO 
on http://tldp.org/ are decent places to start.

> What I would like to do is read and write files to and from the Win
> 98 box with the Mandrake laptop. I have no desires for the Win 98 box 
> to read or write or even see the Mandrake box.

Make sure the 'Doze9x and Mandrake machines have IP addresses in  
appropriate ranges (use "ifconfig" or "IPCONFIG /ALL" to see this 
information) and that you can ping one from the other.  Once that's 
done, set up "Windows File Sharing" on the 'Doze9x machine.  Do *NOT* 
do this if the 'Doze9x machine has a publically accessible IP address; 
there is no real security in 'Doze9x.  Once that's done, use a variant 
of the following command to mount an SMB filesystem on the Linux 
machine:

mount -t smbfs //SERVER/SHARE /mnt/somewhere -o username=USER,
workgroup=WORKGROUP,password=SOOPERSEEKRIT

...you can put that line into your /etc/fstab like so:

//SERVER/SHARE  /mnt/somewhere  smbfs  noauto,users,username=...,
password=...,workgroup=...  0  0

...and then the user who owns /mnt/somewhere can mount and umount the 
remote filesystem //SERVER/SHARE at any time.  HTH,

-- 
   Stupidity got us into this mess--why can't it get us out?
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see