Networks & connectivity

If your household or business is similar to mine, then you have one dial-up connection to be shared among several machines in your home or business. Of course, the main reason for this is cost. The other advantages are:

1. Purchasing only one printer for the use of many
2. Purchasing only one scanner for the use of many
3. Purchasing only one program(s) for the use of many

A disadvantage of this scenario is that shared bandwidth will slow your connection considerably depending on how many shares you are running. I run three. One is the "main" computer used for dial-up and as the "gateway" for the other two computers I run to connect, using my main computer as the gateway for the connection. All I need for this is a 4-Port Hub and a NIC card in all three machines. If you have more or less than what I have, you'll need the HUB and NIC cards accordingly. Yes, you can do this using serial cables to connect computers, but this is cumbersome and slower than using NIC cards and TCP/IP as the networking protocol.

Now, please realize that the scenario I'm laying out was used on my machines with my configurations and hardware. Your configurations and hardware may differ greatly, thus you may have different results. If you want to know what my layout is (concerning processors, hard drives, operating systems, etc.) you can e-mail me for the details. To check your system(s) for compatibility with Mandrake 8.1, visit the Mandrake site for a list of compatible hardware, memory, and processor requirements. For this installation I used the following equipment and operating systems:

1. Main computer used for dial-up, thus requiring only one connection to your ISP and one modem. I loaded Mandrake Linux Personal 8.1 on my Dell Pentium III 600MGHz, 256ECC RAM, 27GB IBM Hard Drive, HP CD/R, Zip Drive (100MB), Floppy Drive, NVidia TNT 2 - 32MB Memory viewing through a 17" Trinitron Flat Screen Monitor running 1024x780 resolution at 16-bit colors.
2. Machine number 2: Compaq Prosignia 200 Server (which I use as a test/trainer machine) with 3 - SCSI 9.1 7200rpm Compaq Hard Drives ( I have a different OS loaded on each hard drive) 208MB RAM, SIS Video 8MB card, Compaq Intelligent 10/100 NIC card, CD-ROM, Floppy, and no sound card. The first hard drive I run Windows 98SE, the second hard drive I run Red Hat Linux 7.3, and the third hard drive I run Windows 2K Server. This is a triple boot machine using 'GRUB' as the Boot Loader thus allowing me to chose on Boot-Up which OS I want to use.
3. Machine number 3: Dell Pentium II 300, 128mb Ram, 8GB Hard Drive, Matrox 8MB Video Card, Sound Blaster sound card running Windows 98SE. Now I also have this machine loaded with its own modem so in the event I am not connected or home my wife can dial up by herself, not needing the LAN to connect. However, when I'm connected she can connect using the LAN without needing to dial up. This also is great in the event my modem should malfunction or I want to test my ISP connection to troubleshoot what is going on.

Loading Mandrake Linux 8.1, you'll go through the usual configurations of loading and selecting what type of configuration you want on your machine. To utilize this scenario, it's very important that you have Networking checked; upon loading, Mandrake will detect your modem and NIC card. Then it will ask you which one you want to configure and set up.

Note: Set up only your dial-up (modem, DSL, cable) to your ISP. Uncheck the LAN/NIC card setup. You will do this after you have configured your dial up.

Mandrake will present you with a Connection Wizard, and you'll need the information from your ISP for your connection phone number and other information needed to connect to your ISP. Once you've completed your installation and configured your Windows Manager, you can go into the Control Panel (you will need root privileges; it will present you with a root password dialog screen to allow this) and click on "Connection." Configure your setup for dial-up and check that your configurations are correct. Once you've done this, you can test your dial-up first before continuing. Once you've determined that your Dial Up is working you can proceed to the next step. Close your Connection screen and in Control Panel again click on the "Connection Sharing" title, which will take you to the "Internet Connection Sharing" property page. ICS is also used in Windows. As I'm doing all this I have my other two computers up and running, so when Mandrake does a hardware/port search it can recognize the other machines as well. You don't have to do it this particular way, it's just the way I did it. Once you're in the "Connection Sharing" screen, make sure you used DHCP (Dynamic Host Connection Protocol). This tells Mandrake to run a DHCP Server on your machine, automatically issuing your other machines a dynamic IP number. I tried issuing static addresses, but it wouldn't work on all of the OSs I was running. DHCP not only worked but worked well, just as it would if I were running a Windows machine as the gateway (which is my default setup when I'm not testing other OSs).

Make sure your other machines are set to "Auto Detect" LAN settings. In Windows you can do this through "Internet Options" in your Control Panel settings. Another option is to type in "winipcfg" for 9x series operating systems; "ipconfig" if you are running NT series OS. This will bring up the settings for your network cards and you can click "release all" then click "renew all". This should insert the new network address you need to connect to the Internet through your newly configured LAN.

I've tried this same scenario using Red Hat 7.3 as the main gateway but couldn't get it to cooperate at all. I didn't want to spend weeks figuring it out, so I loaded my Mandrake 8.1, which I knew had the "Connection Sharing" abilities from the get-go. For all you command-line Linux users; yes, you can configure all the files necessary through the "Konsole" all you want. But for those who have little time and need to accomplish as much as possible, the GUI is my method of choice as it will be for most business users using desktop computing. I encourage everyone: Command Liners, Debian Users, Windows Users, Unix Users, to send in your experiences with connecting LANs, peripherals, anything that would help all of us to understand and implement the configurations we require or would like to utilize... Don't just send "Flames"& be constructive and share your expertise with the rest of the world. After all, isn't that why you're on the World Wide Web?