Re: Direct cable connection
On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 05:12:51AM +0800, csj wrote:
> In Windows I recall something called Direct Cable Connection that
> allowed you to link two computers thru the parallel port. The
> GNU/Linux version of this appears to be PLIP (which I tried and
> failed at many many moons ago).
>
> So, is there a more modern way to "hotwire" two boxes without the
> use of routers or extra file systems? Is it possible to do a
> straight USB to USB or NIC to NIC connection?
If all you are doing is connecting two boxes, you don't need a router.
I don't think it's very useful to be totally without "extra file
systems", you'll need nfs or whatever, but it's not very frightening.
Though this does depend on what exactly you want the two boxes to do
to each other once you have connected them.
I don't think USB to USB is possible, as both PCs would want to be the
controller, which is not allowed. I think.
You can do a straight NIC to NIC connection with a crossover cable
(ethernet equivalent of a null modem cable) and simply set up a very
small network with only two machines on it. You'll need kernel support
for the NIC of course.
You then have the choice of all the vast range of Linux networking
software to transfer the data between the two boxes.
To get the link up and running I think all I had to do was to set up
/etc/network/interfaces like this:
# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)
# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
# The first network card - this entry was created during the Debian installation
# (network, broadcast and gateway are optional)
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.1
# on the other box, address 192.168.1.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
followed by /etc/init.d/networking restart.
This should be enough to allow you to ping one machine from the other,
telnet in etc. Then you can set up nfs or something to share files,
which is pretty straightforward too.
Pigeon
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