[Sussex] BCF Success - Thanks to Steve D, Colin T and Karl J

[Steve Dobson]

Hi Frances

On Sun, Apr 10, 2005 at 02:14:06PM +0100, Fleming, Frances wrote:
> A heartfelt thanks to Steve, Colin and Karl for all the help 
> you gave me (**all day** :) ) at the Worthing fair last Sunday.
> You were very patient, extremely helpful and outdid all my 
> Expectations ...

Hay, it was fun.  
 
> I now have **two** Debian PCs to get to grips with :)
> 
> They will both end up running my Apache/MySQL/PHP apps. I'm
> learning how to network them with the cable you loaned me, using
> CLI. Internet connection will be next, but I will definitely need 
> more of your help for this ... Please!

Well I'll be there with my trusty Debian mirror so what ever you
need (Debian wise) will be there.

> I very much enjoyed the whole day - morning, afternoon **and** 
> evening !!! Thanks so much.
> 
> P.S. I am working on four simple, little demos for the next fair:
> OO.o Writer, OO.o Calc, Karbon14 and one TBD. These are designed 
> for ordinary, low end users, to show what can be done. They will 
> run on my SuSE 9.2 Pro machine.

Great stuff, it is always worth having stuff that demos what is
capable on Linux at the fairs.
 
> Will return the cable at the next moot and hope to buy one at the 
> next fair.

You would be better off buying a little switch so you can network
all your machines if your want.  It is so much more convenient to just
copy files from one machine to the other by the network rather than
a removable disk.

If you're that worried about virus, trojans or attacks (and with a
pure Linux system and good firewalling rules then they really ain't
a problem) you can always pull the cable to your local network
while on-line.

To get your current set-up working you need to edit some files
on both machines.  As I can't remember what you call your machines
I'll use the names "debian1" and "debian2" but you should use the
names that you assigned your systems.

On BOTH machines you need to edit the file "/etc/hosts" so it looks
something like this (you will need to be root):

    127.0.0.1		localhost
    192.168.1.1		debian1
    192.168.1.2		debian2

If there is any stuff at the bottom that talks about IPv6 then just leave
that as it is.

The first line defines the loop back network interface that is need by
all computers.  It is the same on all systems and allows any machine to
"talk" to itself on the network, even if it hasn't got one.

The other two lines define the network address of your two debian machines.

Then on debian1 one edit the file "/etc/network/interfaces" to look
like this:

    # /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

    # The loopback interface
    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback
    
    auto eth0
    iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.1.1
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        broadcast 192.168.1.255

Then on debian2 one edit the file "/etc/network/interfaces" to look
like this:

    # /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

    # The loopback interface
    auto lo
    iface lo inet loopback
    
    auto eth0
    iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.1.2
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        broadcast 192.168.1.255

The only difference between the files is the IP address.  To make these
changes take effect either:

  1). reboot the system, or

  2). Type the commands:

        # ifdown eth0
        # ifup eth0

You can see what your network card is configured as use the command:

        # ifconfig eth0

Which will show you something like this (note my IP addresses are different):

        eth0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:46:26:26:D4
               inet addr:10.100.1.3  Bcast:10.100.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
               UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
               RX packets:49692 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
               TX packets:58453 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
               collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
               RX bytes:29076290 (27.7 MiB)  TX bytes:6251179 (5.9 MiB)

You should then be able to run the ping test:

       # ping debian2              <--- on debian1

or 
       # ping debian1              <--- on debian2

Ctrl-C will stop the ping command.

If that works then your networked.

> Oops, I used "TBD"! That's "to be decided"
> You see, I have been following the list ;)

I've always used TBD as "To Be Defined", but whatever rocks your boat.

Good luck

Steve