[ale] Networking Linuxboxes

tom tfreeman at intel.digichem.net
Tue May 27 14:15:07 EDT 2008


Which, since I'm not currently using SAMBA, I wasn't aware of. And part of 
the reason I structured my response as I did.

While YaST may take care of the configuration transparently, there might 
be a challenge on the Fedora end with respect to the configuration.

On Tue, 27 May 2008, James Sumners wrote:

> There is no need to assign specific IPs to the machines if you intend
> to use SAMBA. SAMBA sends out a broadcast packet and all SAMBA servers
> on the same subnet will hear it. The only thing that could be a
> problem is a firewall on the local machine(s). But, since the OP is
> using OpenSUSE, and presumably the YaST configuration tool, that
> should be taken care of transparently.
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Thompson Freeman
> <tfreeman at intel.digichem.net> wrote:
>> On 05/27/2008 11:28:23 AM, Marc Ferguson wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I know this might be a silly question, but how do you
>>> network two or more
>>> linuxboxes.  I've done google searches on this and for the
>>> most part they
>>> write about SAMBA and how to network linux within a
>>> windows network.
>>>
>>> My wife, finally installed linux on her machine this
>>> weekend - happy day!
>>> She's running openSUSE 10.3 and I'm running Fedora 8.  I
>>> thought they would
>>> automatically see each other, but it looks like there is
>>> more to it than I
>>> originally thought.  Right now it's a simple peer-to-peer
>>> network, I don't
>>> know if we'll should do a client-server structure, but
>>> I'll listen to any
>>> suggestions.  Thanks.
>>
>> Couple of questions, the answers to which may help you
>> track down your best approach. To begin with, how are
>> things networked on the physical level? I'd assume that
>> your and your ladys machines are simply nodes on a lan
>> behind a router/switch to your isp. I'd also assume that
>> your individual ip addresses are dynamically assigned by
>> that same router. I could be easily wrong about this tho.
>> Next question would be what needs sharing between the two
>> or more boxes: files, printers, web pages, data base, chat??
>>
>> The following partial discussion will be vigorously
>> corrected by those who know better (and I'm sticking my
>> neck out here just so that I can _get_ that correction!)
>>
>> Asssuming that you have your machines behind a
>> firewall/router/switch type box to the internet, you want
>> to configure the router to assign each machine the same ip
>> address eachtime that machine connects to the network. If
>> that router will also provide local dns name service, use
>> that as it will simplify administration of the rest of the
>> network. Otherwise, you will need to add entries to each
>> machine's /etc/hosts file corresponding to each machine.
>> Also, you need to make sure that the firewall on each
>> machine has a hole poked in it for each service you need to
>> access. Obviously, disabling each machine's firewall
>> amounts poking _lots_ of holes in the firewall.
>>
>> As to sharing stuff. I _think_ printer sharing with cups
>> should be pretty automatic at this point, but I'm not sure.
>> You may have to enable sharing manually when you set up the
>> printers.
>>
>> File sharing could be via nfs (more of a client-server
>> style arraingement) or samba, or possibly by a FUSE based
>> system like sshfs. Google is your friend here. Personally I
>> use nfs regularly, sshfs for fun and giggles, and samba
>> historically but not now out of being lazy.
>>
>> FWIW, assuming you are behind a firewall/router/switch, you
>> might want to consider converting to some third party
>> firmware to assure yourself the ability to run a local dns
>> service, and possibly to host some print spool capability.
>>
>> Hope this helps some.
>
>
>


More information about the Ale mailing list