[CLUG] Internet connection with Linux

[vincie]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2000, Kevin Bartlett wrote:

> Yea, but the real fun is now going to start. I now want to set up the Linux
> box to talk to the windoze boxes, and since I have the same amount of
> knowledge on networks as I did on the internet.
> 
> So if any of you lads have any help to offer, I would be very grateful.

Hi, if you want to go ultimate in cheapo, you can do what I did :)
....ppp over the serial ports. 

To do this you need to:
1. link each doze box to a serial port on the linux box with a serial
cable (eg. laplink cable).
2. download the null modem driver for windows. (sorry, i dont remember
where)
3. write a script on the linux box to listen to the serial port, then
spawn off pppd after a character is received.

with a quality, short cable you can get 115,200 bps, and you can pick a
tcpip compression on the pppd commandline to maximize that bandwidth.

being the scrooge i am, i built my own cable, which is 100ft long and i
get about 50,000 bps. Thats grand tho, because i just use it for sharing
net access to a 33600 bps modem.

theres loads of info in things like the serial howto and text-terminal
howto, and ppp docs. 

i used to use agetty to do the pppd spawning before, when i had slack. it
presented a login/pass to the caller, so they could to log in to an
account with pppd as their shell. This was a nicer setup in my opinion,
but i havent been able to get similar funtionality from the RH5.2 gettys,
so thats why the script was born.

for that pppd commandline anyway, just stick "local" in there, the
serial line speed, a netmask, and the 'local ip:remote ip' pair, then
ms-ppp doesnt get a heart attack waiting for them. man pppd has all
switches relating to compression and optional stuff after that.

once the pppd's start talking, they become friends pretty easily, and will
share packets without any other commands needed on either end. so from 
the linux box, try pinging the ip you gave as the remote ip on the
pppd commandline. Less is more when debugging connections anyway, and
probably setting it up first time too. So switch off all authentication,
compression, routing and other jiggery pokery to start with :)

and good luck :)

vincie f