From: elefino Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 21:15:15 -0400 To: Cc: Greg Wallace Subject: Re: [SLE] Basic setup questions [Part 1]

On Sunday 09 October 2005 00:43, Greg Wallace wrote:

...

I had the same setup at one time. It seemed to work ok except if I lost my WAN. In that case, I completely lost my network (no ability to access other machines). I have a Linksys Router that hands out my local network addresses. What I needed to do was to point SuSE to the router instead of letting it pass through and pick up the name servers at my ISP. Now, the router picks up those addresses and serves them up to my local network. If my ISP is down, I still have full access to my other machines because my name server (192.168.1.1) is still up. My local network is, simply, local. On the screen you mention, I see --

Host Name: linux Domain name: local Name Server 1: 192.168.1.1 Domain Search 1: local

Ok, wait... the Linksys has only a DHCP server, not its own DNS server, right? It only points to the ISP's name servers, doesn't it (using the ISP server IP addresses that I typed into it when I first configured it)??

I should be able to name my boxes anything-dot-anywhere, shouldn't I? Am I misunderstanding, or the naming only becomes important for PCs on my LAN that want to talk to each other... and only then if they want to use names rather than IP addresses to talk to each other (Samba, nfs, whatever...)?

For example, would it be proper (and cause NO GRIEF...) to use the hostname command in a console, or the YaST hostnaming dialog, - to name this computer "thisbox.ourhouse", and then - to name my wife's computer "thatbox.ourhouse"... and maybe - I'd name my iBook "airhead.ourhouse".........

Is that going to help give me a cozy little LAN, where (say) Samba servers on my PC and on my wife's PC can allow Samba clients on those respective PCs to each access the other's shares? Is that going to have any effect at all on dealings with the ISP through my LinkSys? By explicitly giving the ".ourhouse" part, am I interfering with anything?

Nope, that works fine. You'll end up with a /etc/hosts file that looks like: 192.168.1.1 router.ourhouse router 192.168.1.2 thisbox.ourhouse thisbox 192.168.1.3 thatbox.ourhouse thatbox 192.168.1.4 someotherbox.ourhouse someotherbox And then in /etc/resolv.conf: Server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx # primary ISP DNS server address Server yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy # secondary ISP DNS server address Domain ourhouse # this tells the resolver that it's local network is # "ourhouse" Search ourhouse # This allows you to reference "thisbox" instead of # needing "thisbox.ourhouse". It tells the resolver to # assume the domain ".ourhouse" unless otherwise specified. As long as those two server lines are in resolv.conf, your dealings with your ISP shouldn't be affected at all. (Note: this is assuming a static IP setup. If you're letting Linksys' DHCP server touch the client, things get all messy.) As for your question about things on the internet: basically, the rest of the world only sees your router. If you open a port on the router, the world still only sees your router -- your router just happens to take that incoming traffic, turn it around, and send it on to a machine inside. Your internal domain names (".ourhouse"), and everything else, are nice and hidden. - Ian

From: elefino Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 22:33:39 -0400 To: Subject: Re: [SLE] Basic setup questions [Part 1]

First, two things:

1) thank you for the reply

2) I just crashed KMail 1.8.2 (KDE 3.4.2 level b, SuSE 10.0) twice in a row by hitting "Reply to all", backspacing through the personal addresses, accidentally backspacing through the [SLE] address, then "accidentally" backspacing one more time (i.e. out of the TO: field). I say "accidentally" because the second time was deliberate to see if the first event was a fluke.

Sounds like a bug to me...I bet there's a report form somewhere (kde.org, maybe?)

On Wednesday 12 October 2005 21:46, Ian Marlier wrote:

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(Note: this is assuming a static IP setup. If you're letting Linksys' DHCP server touch the client, things get all messy.)

I meant to ask about this earlier, but those posts were already stuffed with more than enough questions.

So, you imply that the LinkSys DHCP server is doing more than dishing out IP addresses in the range that I specify? I've only got three computers, so I could just go all-static, but I thought that if I specified static addresses for some computers, outside the range allowed for DHCP, then the DHCP server would ignore the computers that had the static addresses. Is there something else that it diddles besides just numeric IP addresses?

A typical bare-bones DHCP server setup, which is what the Linksys router is, will hand out: - Client IP address - DNS server address(es) - Default Gateway As long as you have an IP somewhere on the same subnet as the router (typically 192.168.1.X for linksys stuff), the ip address(es) of a DNS server or two in your resolv.conf file, and the default gateway set to the IP address of the router, you should be good.

elefino wrote:

First, two things:

1) thank you for the reply

2) I just crashed KMail 1.8.2 (KDE 3.4.2 level b, SuSE 10.0) twice in a row by hitting "Reply to all", backspacing through the personal addresses, accidentally backspacing through the [SLE] address, then "accidentally" backspacing one more time (i.e. out of the TO: field). I say "accidentally" because the second time was deliberate to see if the first event was a fluke.

On Wednesday 12 October 2005 21:46, Ian Marlier wrote:

...

(Note: this is assuming a static IP setup. If you're letting Linksys' DHCP server touch the client, things get all messy.)

I meant to ask about this earlier, but those posts were already stuffed with more than enough questions.

So, you imply that the LinkSys DHCP server is doing more than dishing out IP addresses in the range that I specify? I've only got three computers, so I could just go all-static, but I thought that if I specified static addresses for some computers, outside the range allowed for DHCP, then the DHCP server would ignore the computers that had the static addresses. Is there something else that it diddles besides just numeric IP addresses?

Why not try an experiment? First, configure a computer with DHCP and see what works. Then, change to static config, including default route & DNS and see if everything still works.