Sharing Cable Connection / Print & File with LAN

[Pleiades]

Sharing my phone line connection at the moment, using AnalogX in an NT4 box, but that's too easy so.....

Thinking of getting cable, and sharing it on the home TCP/IP network through a Linux box. There will be at least 3 machines sharing the connection, and there could possibly be a couple more (busy house). Most machines will run W9x, but I want a Samba print & file server, and a Linux firewall.

Will one machine handle both functions, or should I run one for each job? Is the firewall software named in the quote below the way to go, or is should I configure my box to do the job. I want to do this the right way, I'm not afraid of hard work, and there is no shortage of old 486 and early Pentium boxes here, so feel free to suggest the har way http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

Running RH 6.2 at the moment, but will probably change to Debian to do all this. Also, I would prefer to do it by hand. Just feels better that way.

Would this be the way to do it? From a thread in this forum.

You need SAMBA to network your linux computer and the 98 one. Expect some difficulty, as it takes some trail and error to get right.
2. Since you are using a cable modem (lucky bugger) you ***NEED*** a firewall. I recommend going to google.com and searching for PMFirewall and also portsentry. Setup both of those on your linux system ( I am assuming that your going to use linux box as your gateway).

Thanks

David.

[This message has been edited by Pleiades (edited 07 January 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Pleiades (edited 07 January 2001).]

[atlatl1]

Here's what I did at home:

You have 486 boxes, right? Check out http://www.freesco.org
It's designed to be a one floppy disk Cisco router clone. Use one of the Win98 boxes to do the downloads and disk making. Rip everyting but a cheap/old video card and two NIC's and 16-32 Meg of memory (oh, and a 1.44 floppy drive http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif) out of one of the old 486's old pentium will work, obviously. 386 was too slow. Hook it all up, one NIC to the cable modem, one to your network hub. Slap in the floppy and GO! Go SLOWLY through the setup. Ours has been running (non-stop) since September and we've had no problems that weren't the cable provider's fault. Be aware that most (if not all) cable providers do NOT support Linux solutions. I hve a keyboard connected, but I don't need to. The monitor's long gone. I do what maintenance I want through the web interface from whatever machine I'm using at the time. Been at least 6 weeks since I messed with it. I'd suggest another box for Samba services. I have REAL problems w/ using firewalls as anything BUT firewalls. EVERY extra service you have on a firewall is another possible exploitable hole! Why chance it? BTW, we have 4 macnines, one Win98, 2 Linux and one LILO dual boot Win98/Linux. Linux boxes use Slackware, but custom compiled kernels from 2.2.16 to 2.2.18. (at least ONE 2.4.0 soon, I hope! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif)
Samba isn't >too< hard, just read the HOWTO's and the samba.conf file. It'll still be trial and error, but you'll get it. Be sure to get Samba 2.0.7. Get the sources and compile it, if you need to. Have you done that before? Hint: If you use Midnight Commander, you can do the untar, etc. in one step. Highlight the file and press <F2>.

Don't be insulted if this is too simplistic. I support Win98 users at work! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Pleiades]

Just what I was looking for actually, no insult taken. When I get the cable, I'll hop right into it. Thanks.

[guitarlyn]

Well,
I've done this with FreeSCO, LRP, Mandrake, Corel, and Debian. I like Corel the best of the bunch, especially with Samba (it's built in to the File Manager). I've written some "newbie'ized" How-To's for the entire setup. You can check at my site (on my box)at
http://guitarlynn.penguinpowered.com/lhowto.html

or my mirror at:
http://www.geocities.com/guitarlynn/lhowto.html

LRP and FreeSCO will work great for a router, but using it as a Samba server leaves a lot to be desired, Corel/Debian will cover it all with no problem at all.

Hope this helps,
~Guitarlynn

[atlatl1]

guitarlyn:
I checked the howto and it looks like you have your firewall doing multiple duty. I assumed a 486 and set up to act as a firewall and ONLY a firewall. Each and every extra process on the firewall past that is a security hole. That's the long and short of it. Looking at the security announcemnts about Linux I see, I'm glad I have it done that way. IMHO, FTP, print servers, mail servers, X-sessions, samba shares all have no business on a firewall. Other services are easy enough to set up on other boxes. The nice thing about a floppy router/firewall, is that if you do get cracked, you just turn off the box, reboot and change the passwords, tweak and your whole again. No major losses. Two different approaches, I guess. Isn't Linux cool? http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Coral Sea]

Ah yes, the old networking with Linux and Windows scenario. Well, you don't have to use Samba, but that's the free way. You can use NFS but you have to buy a third party NFS client for the Windows boxes.

Using Samba can be daunting at first. Download the free Samba book from O'Reilly. Note that Windows 95 OSR2 and up use encrypted passwords so you either have to tweak the Windows registry to stop that (I would not recommend that) or enable Samba to handle encrypted passwords.

I have always been able to get at Windows shares from Linux but it was only recently that the penny dropped for me in getting Windows to link with the Linux shares and printers. Little syntactical things can really trip you up. You might find SWAT useful in configuring the smb.conf file but I found it just as easy to do it by hand.

I have CUPS for printer control on my Linux box but I don't use that for the Windows 98 printer drivers (you'll see this option in the smb.conf file if it's the latest and you have CUPS). You will probably find that the print output if better if you use the Windows 98 printer drivers on the client machines, especially for colour images.

Hope that helps and good luck.

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