Re: hi and ?

[Daniel Reuter <reuter@Uni-Hohenheim.DE>]

Hello Robert,

Just a few additions to Ron's information (wanted to send something
similar, but Ron was faster ;-)

On 4 May 2000, Robert Fendt wrote:

> i have read the ethernet-HOWTO and the networking-HOWTO, but somehow it was
> pretty late at night and i wasn't able to get the info i wanted. 

Have you read the Networking-Overview-HOWTO or the NET3-4-HOWTO? If you
want to set things up, you should get the NET3-4-HOWTO, the
Networking-Overview-HOWTO is, as the name already implies, just an
overview.

> so i hope you can give me some hints how to proceed:

Ron's setup will only configure the interfaces. So if you want to telnet,
ftp or ping (or something similar) the other machine, you always have to
use the IP-Numbers. If you want to assign names to your machines, you have
to do the following:
edit file /etc/hosts in both machines, so that it looks something like
that (There are sometimes some other things to do about that, but they
usually come properly configured on the debian distro):

# /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1	localhost loopback
10.124.124.1	thishostname
10.124.124.3	otherhostname

You could also setup DNS, but I don't think this is worth to consider on a
network with two machines. Assuming, you have telnetd installed you will
then be able to do something like:

telnet thishostname

from host otherhostname.

The IP-addresses only apply to Ron's example, if you use different ones in
the ifconfig, you will also have to use different ones in the /etc/hosts
file. Also note, that Ron's file will only apply to one computer, to
configure the other, you have to change IP-addresses.
Perhaps you might have a look at 
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/htbin/rfc/rfc1918.html
This is RFC1918 (some kind of Internet Standard, don't know what RFC
stands for). It's about Best Current Practice for Address Allocation for
Private Internets (i.e. LANs), and might give you some hints about which
IP-numbers (addresses) to choose for your machines.

> point me to some documents on the net:

Apart from the HOWTOs try the Linux Network Administrators Guide at 
http://www.linuxdoc.org/docs.html
It's a bit outdated, but still a good explanation of the
Theories and Principles of Networking (For actual setup use the HOWTOs,
they provide more up-to-date information on the practical side) 

Regards,
Daniel