[Gllug] How to access the internet

[Raju]

Bruce,

Thank U for a very clear message. I could follow the principals of what you
were saying without any difficulty.

The time has come for me to read up and try this thing on my own. And no. I
have never done this before, but I could set up the samba and DHCP on the
linux server without troubling anyone else. Though I sense that is all going
to come to an end now ;=).

I am trying to setup a "workable" network at a very small local primary
school which has no money and no technical talent inhouse. So far I have
collected around 15/16 486s and low end pentiums. They are all low on memory
and hard disk capacity since they were all "throw aways" from local
companies. The best from them automatically got elected to be the "server"
:). Presently I have them all running W95 (yes, :-|) and the server running
samba. I knew enough of windows to do the job but the school has no money to
buy the software. So I started learning about Linux to see if I could be of
any use to the schools of England :) Needless to say I do this in my spare
time without any monetary compensation.

Now, if you excuse me I need to go read all the How-Tos I can find on these
subjects :=))


----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Richardson <brichardson@lineone.net>
To: <gllug@list.ftech.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Gllug] How to access the internet


> On  9 Feb, Raju wrote:
> > Bruce,
> >
> > I am confused. (Newbie!!)
>
> So were the rest of us.  I don't think anybody got the actual sense of
> what you want to do from your first e-mail  .
>
> >
> > I connect to internet thru a dialup account with Freeserve. Can I still
make
> > the Linux box that is dialing up a "router"?
>
> Yes, the Linux box is the gateway for the other machines.  On the
> Windows machines put the ip address of the linux box in as the gateway
> in the TCP/IP properties.
>
> >
> > This is what I want to make happen: Whenever anybody on the LAN starts a
> > browser and wants a site the Linux box with modem should dialup the
account
> > and make the connection if it is not already made. This should also work
for
> > many people on the LAN browsing at the same time.
>
> OK, there's a lot to cover so I'll only sketch the basics.
>
> The connection: you need to set up pppd in demand-dialing mode.  At it's
> simplest that means getting ppp to work when run directly from you Linux
> box and then running it with "demand" added to the options.
>
> IP forwarding: you need to enable this so that the Linux box will
> forward ip packets from other machines out to the internet.  The
> configuration tool for whichever distribution you use should allow you
> to set this.
>
> IP masquerading: you need this so that several machines can share the
> connection and the same IP address.  To the outside world it looks as
> if just one machine is connected and your Linux box sorts out the
> connections at your end.  Right now the best tool for this is ipchains
> - see the IPCHAINS Howto, it has a simple chapter on masquerading.
>
> With two unfamiliar tasks to get right, I would test the IP
> masquerading  first.  Just run pppd manually on the Linux box and then
> see if you've gotten masquerading right by trying to browse from one of
> the Windows boxes.  Once that's working, try getting the auto-dial
> feature of pppd working.
>
> You'll probably find that you get pppd dialling out sometimes even when
> nobody is browsing.  This can be caused by a variety of things but
> mostly by software on the windows boxes pinging something out in the
> net.  Some software - ICQ for example, you should just veto cause it'll
> keep your connection running all the time.  Other traffic you'll need
> to filter out.  ipchains can do that and provide basic fire-wall
> capabilities if you want them.
>
> There's a lot to work through if you're not familiar with this.  If you
> find you need advice maybe there's a handy guru on the list but it's
> not my area of expertise, I've only set it up on my little home
> network.  It's probably worth asking for help on one of the linux ngs.
>
> --
>
> Bruce
>
> "The good news is that in 1995 we will have a good operating system and
> programming language; the bad news is that they will be Unix and C++."
> - Richard P. Gabriel
>
>
>
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