Sharing Internet access with a XP box.

[Michael Vondung]

Greetings,

After well over a decade with MS products, I'm in the (very) early stages of
switching platforms. After looking at various Linux distros, I came to the
conclusion that FreeBSD (and its more mature community) is the better choice
for me. I must admit, though, that I'm rather overwhelmed, so please bear
with my hopelessly incorrect terminology and the painful lack of knowledge.
:)

I've installed FreeBSD 4.8 on a second machine (a P3/700/256M with a 20 GB
HD). The installation (I did several, just to familiarize myself with the
various options) went smooth. The machine it is on does not have a direct
connect to the internet. I bought a network card (Intel PRO/100M Desktop
adapter, which was properly recognised by FreeBSD -- a new experience to
actually check compatibility lists before purchasing a piece of hardware)
for the FreeBSD machine, and connected it to my XP workstation (a
P4/2.6G/512M with currently 80 GB, which has an Intel PRO/100 VE adapter
on-board) with a crossed cable. This workstation runs Windows XP Pro, and
connects to the Internet via a dial-up ISDN connection (FritzCard). It does
not have a static IP address, and it is *not* permanently connected to the
'net.

My next "bigger" step is that I'd like FreeBSD to use/share the Internet
connection of the XP machine so that I can download ports and packages, and
learn more about maintaining the system. Ideally, the FreeBSD box should
"know" whether the XP machine is currently connected to the 'net. This
sounds simply, but I already declare defeat at this point because I don't
even know where to start.

This is actually the "destination", and I first tried something easier: to
run a telnet client on the XP machine and connect to it from the BSD box. I
assigned a fictive IP address to the Ethernet card in the FreeBSD box
(1.2.3.4) and tried to telnet to that address. (At this point you can tell
that I never worked with LANs.) Then I tried to telnet to the dynamic
address the XP box currently had (why, I don't know!). Neither idea had any
success. So, in addition to my actual question (the "shared" Internet
access), I actually don't have an idea how to make both machines "talk" with
each other, regardless of any Internet connection. Like I said, I do sound
hopelessly helpless. :)

On a side note, my "actual goal" is to eventually turn the FreeBSD box into
a local IMAP/NNTP server that gets data through the Internet connection of
the XP machine. The mail/news programs on the XP machine would then get
their data from the FreeBSD box. It would probably be much easier if the
FreeBSD box connected to the net directly, however, this isn't possible
because it does not have a free PCI slot, and I can't "stuff" another ISDN
card into it (I'd also prefer not have to buy another one).

"Down the road", my plan is to get a second 40 or 80 GB HD for my (current)
XP box and put FreeBSD on it and then dual-boot. The reason I want the
"other" PC to function as "external" IMAP server is so that I will
eventually be able to maintain mail via both XP and BSD, without ending up
with different mail databases. (I need Outlook as well as a native Windows
environment for job-related reasons, so I can't do without XP for some time,
but would like to also be able to do mail under FreeBSD. Having mail stored
on a different computer that operates as an IMAP server is the best idea I
can come up with. This is purely theoretical.)

Anyway, this is the destination and unlikely to be accomplished any time
soon, seeing how I get stuck at the very basic "challenges" already.

My thanks for suggestions, thoughts and help in advance,
-Michael