[Nelug] A newbie requiring lots of help

[Eddy Younger]

=?iso-8859-1?Q?Graham_Tinn?= writes:
 > I hope this is not to basic?
 > 
 > I am setting up a network at home:
 > 
 > There are two PCs one with two NICs
 > 
 > PC one eth0 to a switch and two XP machines
 >        eth1 to a hub and the second PC
 > 
 > PC two eth0 to the hub
 > 
 > I would forget the XP for now I think I have a long
 > way to go before that stage.
 > 
 > I am running Suse 8.2 pro
 > 
 > I can ping from one machine to the other.
 > 
 > First question do I need to setup a DNS for the local
 > machines or is it only a requirement for the internet?

No, you don't absolutely need DNS for a network of this size. It would
be sufficient to mahe /etc/hosts entries on each machine, for each
machine on your LAN. Or you could use NIS, but that's more complicated
unless you know it already (but worth considering later as it
simplifies maintenance of hosts, passwds and countless other
information). 
 > 
 > I have tried pinging by machine name ie linux300 and
 > linux800 each machine can ping itself but fails to
 > recognise the other machine. I take it this is a DNS
 > thing?
 > 

Do you in fact have /etc/hosts entries for the peer machines ?
What does the hosts line in /etc/nsswitch.conf look like ? 
You don't perhaps have over-zealous firewalling o you machines ?
What exactly happens when you try to ping ? Does it just time out or
are there any error messages ?

What does the "ifconfig" output on 2 machines look like ? Have you
assigned the 2 NIC's on PC two to different subnets ?

 > If I need a DNS server setting up under Suse I could
 > use some pointers.

I don't think you do. But ping me off-list if you like and I'll show
you my own DNS configuration. I run DNS locally in addition to NIS,
just because.

Eddy.
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