[Coco] Linux box needs ethernet connection to router/web/LAN

[David Hazelton]

Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Monday 23 April 2007, Roger Taylor wrote:
>   
>> As some of you might know, I have never gotten any Red Hat Linux
>> version I've owned connected to the web or to another computer.  In
>> other words, the main feature of Linux (networking) has yet to work for me.
>>
>> What I want to do now is connect the dern thing to my Windows LAN and
>> give it access to the web and possibly the other PCs shared folders,
>> if anything.
>>
>> I use a LinkSys WRT54G 802.11 wireless router with 4 ethernet ports
>> on the back.  This works great from Windows, and it's a broadband
>> router as well so every PC has access to the web automatically.
>>
>> Since Linux is "supposed" to be smart like this, I assume I can
>> connect that PC to the router and do minimal configurations to get it
>> online.
>>
>> The Linux box will be used for compiling CGI-BIN scripts mainly.  The
>> CoCo Cafe is one of those scripts I need to update.  But I don't want
>> to have to keep moving the binary back over to Windows just to upload
>> it to my server.  This required in the past a common hard drive I
>> formatted from Windows using FAT and then had it automounted under
>> Linux.  (My Linux box is a dual-boot Windows/Linux PC), but I ditched
>> the Windows drive recently in favor of laptops.
>>
>> So, the old DEV1 tower PC, as I called it, is now just running
>> Linux.  I will also get CCASM working for Linux if I can get my
>> network set up right under Linux.
>>
>> Can someone walk me through the steps they would take from scratch
>> for making Red Had 9 ready to connect to a router and on the web?
>>
>> By the way, I also recently upgraded the firmware on my LinkSys
>> router to DD-WRT which is actually running under Linux on the
>> router!  This hack is one of the best kept "secrets" for routers, and
>> I've now got software power boosting for the antennas, the ability to
>> act as a client to another router, and much more.  The modes are
>> there for almost anything, unlike the limited modes of the stock
>> firmware (which is already powerful, as it is).  So you can imagine
>> why LinkSys has done everything it can to keep Linux hackers from
>> taking control of newer versions of their router.  However, they keep
>> doing it anyway!  :)
>>
>> I've got etc/hosts set with hostname = localhost
>> Is that correct?
>> The eth0 device I think is set to use IRQ7.  The PC has a PCI
>> ethernet card called Network Everywhere or something like that, the
>> one Walmart used to sell for about $20.  It has always worked
>> flawlessly for Windows networking.
>>     
>
> First off Roger, Red Hat 9 is now very very old & gray, and has long since 
> used up its allotted social security account.  Its an orphan, with no 
> security updates for several years now.
>
> 2nd, go into your routers web page and setup a dhcp server if its not already 
> done.  I too use that best kept secret, dd-wrt, but running on an old 500mhz 
> k6-iii box, no drives, just a half gig cf card it thinks is a hard drive so 
> it boots from it, and with 320 megs of ram on that x86 board, ikt never 
> touches the cf card again after bootup.  And while I do have the wifi card, 
> I've not enabled it but once and then had to rezero the cf card losing my 
> registration number before I could recover a working unit so I'm running the 
> public version ATM.
>
> BrainSlayer will send me another, but wifi isn't that important to me since I 
> can plug in a 6 foot cat5 when I need to run the laptop, and its a lot more 
> secure.  I have an access point running too, but its not connected to the 
> switch as long as I'm not playing with wifi.  I have a sniffer that can see 3 
> access points from here, only one of which is mine. :(
>
> Once the dhcp server is enabled, then all you should have to do is run 
> system-config-network and tell the eth0 interface to use dhcp, plug in a cat5 
> and issue as root "service network restart".  At that point, you should be 
> connected & able to ping your other boxes by address, or if you add them 
> to /etc/hosts, by their names too.
>
> RH9 is NOT going to have any working wireless stuff at all, and this fedora 6 
> install here is just now getting this wireless stuff enabled, but the std 
> cat5 ethernet works flawlessly even for RH9.
>
> However, the bootup system snoopers to see what kind of hardware you have, and 
> the automatic loading of the drivers for that hardware is working quite 
> smoothly in most distro's now.  If you want to wait for F7, which will be out 
> in about a month, I'm going to update the FC5 on my laptop & maybe we can 
> trade war stories about the install.  I'll upgrade, but you'll have to wipe 
> the disks and start from scratch, no way will an RH9->F7 upgrade ever work.
>
> If you have something precious, put it on cd's, or mount another drive 
> temporarily and make copies so the precious stuff is out of harms way when 
> the installer formats the main drive.  Staples did have a usb powered, neatly 
> cased 2" 40GB drive for $40 a couple of weeks back that would be very handy 
> for such, but I don't know if any of those are still on the table where you 
> are.
>
>   
I use Clarkconnect 4.1 for my internet server in Standalone mode, not 
firewall/router mode.  This is also a headless server (No Screen or 
keyboard needed after installation, controlled from web interface and/or 
ssh).  This will give you Windows LAN (Samba)  this is Centos Linux put 
together  with PHP scripts to run everything it offers in a easy and 
neat package.  It is free with a 10 user licenses.  You should check it 
out.  It is Linux so things that aren't standard are easily added.  I 
run slimserver on mine.  The public forum, for those who don't buy the 
business package and have phone support is maintained company 
representatives, so when I had problems,  I received "real" tech support. 
    I was a Unix System Admin, so I have been running different flavors 
of  Linux for years, but I had a older machine, (Athlon 600 ..(Slot A)) 
that always gave me trouble with Fedora, Mandriva (Mandrake), FreeBSD 
and most recently Ubuntu (Still on my Mac G4).    Had my server a old 
PIII 1GHZ until that fried running Mandriva.  When I tried to reload 
Mandriva on the Athlon it just wasn't stable.  I've run Clarkconnect for 
about a month with no crashes.  Clarkconnect wants a minimum of 512mb of 
RAM according to it's documents, but with 4 users, maybe 2 at one time.  
I run it with 256mb without an issue.  Clarkconnect will use 90+% of 
your RAM for I/O no matter how much RAM you have. 
    I use a Linksys router running DD-WRT.  for my router and another 
Linksys router running DD-WRT acting as an access point, so my whole 
yard is covered.  (I got the routers Dirt cheap and found DD-WRT a 
powerful alternative to the Linksys firmware).  My house is somewhat 
wired,  I have about 4 network drops, 1 on side of the house and one in 
the Kitchen.  (My unofficial test bench). and 1 in my Computer Room.  
Both my Wife and I have Laptops besides some older Desktops around the 
house.  The Laptops and The Playstation 2 are connected Wireless to my 
network.  Now I'm trying to get a backup solution.  the one with 
Clarkconnect  - BAKULA is to complicated and Clarkconnect stripped the 
backup to Tape.  So I'm looking at other options.

Now to put things back on topic, I would love to get my AT306/MM1 on 
line : )


~David Hazelton