Home Network, step by step?

[R. Scott Kennan]

I'm sorry, but in my earlier message, I neglected to fully explain my
setup. I can't afford $50 for a router (the holidays etc.), so I have
to do it the hard way, at least for now. I'm a writer, and I want to
be able to work on my own computer during the holidays without
constantly being asked by my family to use the internet.

Ok, here's my setup: I have broadband over a surfboard modem from Cox
cable. I have an ethernet card (D-link) that I just picked up, and a
crossover cable that connects the two computers via this card, to
another, identical one on the linux box. I've had this working using
Win XP (very easily), but I really don't want to go back if I can
avoid it.

Here's the results of ifconfig (I can't make heads or tails of it-
which one is my incoming internet connection? ):
 
fwe0: flags=108802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=8<VLAN_MTU>
        ether 02:e0:18:11:a5:2b
        ch 1 dma -1
bfe0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=8<VLAN_MTU>
        inet6 fe80::2e0:18ff:fef9:96e9%bfe0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
        inet 68.230.154.245 netmask 0xfffffe00 broadcast 68.230.155.255
        ether 00:e0:18:f9:96:e9
        media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
        status: active
rl0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        options=8<VLAN_MTU>
        ether 00:11:95:1d:43:fd
        media: Ethernet autoselect (10baseT/UTP)
        status: no carrier
plip0: flags=108810<POINTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
        inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
        inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
        inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5

Anyway, thank you all very much, I really appreciate the help. 


On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:47:03 -0600, Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P.
<kdk at daleco.biz> wrote:
> R. Scott Kennan wrote:
> 
> >Hey everyone, this is my first post. I'm a freebsd Newbie who really
> >doesn't know much at all yet, so please excuse my probably lame
> >question.
> >
> >
> >
> 
> Welcome!  No question is dumb, per se; it is worse to not ask
> and remain ignorant, IMHO.  The quid pro quo is that it is
> more appropriate to ask the list on freebsd-questions; I would
> guess however that you couldn't have known that without reading
> the list charters, which seems like a bother (but may prove
> interesting to you later on).  It does beg the question, "what's
> the newb list for", ;-) but that's not relevant to this post.
> 
> At any rate, the question....
> 
> 
> 
> >At any rate, I need to network two computers- my BSD box, and one
> >running Mandrake Linux  9.2 (for now). I also need to share my
> >internet connection.  Actually the internet connection sharing is more
> >important. What steps do I need to take? All the pages I've brought up
> >seem to assume some prior knowledge of both networking and/or Unix (I
> >have absoultely none), and I apparently don't even know enough to
> >recognise the information in the FreeBSD handbook. I installed FreeBSD
> >to learn, but I'm totally lost in this matter.
> >
> >If anyone can help me, or tell me to RTFM (as long as you point out
> >the manual) I'd appreciate it. Once again, Sorry for the dumb
> >question. Thanks.
> >
> >-R. Scott Kennan
> >
> 
> Darren K. & others have been pointing you in the right general
> direction.  Using an internet facing **router** instead of a switch
> would get you up and going with a relatively small investment of
> cash and even less of RTFM.  To do it with no/less cash, (but a
> counterbalancing investment in time/knowledge gained) you'll need
> to use one of the computers you already have and NAT.  If you
> use a broadband Inet connection, you'll need to run natd(8)
> and have a working knowledge of kernel building or kldloading
> along with familiarity with ipfw(8); if you have a PPP or PPPOE
> type connection, you may be able to run your ppp with the -nat
> option, as I do at home (dialup; too many feet out of town here
> in the sticks....)
> 
> As for routers, I have used the LinkSys BEFSR41 and the D-Link
> DI-604* for this purpose in SOHO environments with {relatively}
> few problems. Once I learned enough about FreeBSD, I began
> to switch out these small devices for old computers (of which I
> have a plethora), in order to have more fine-grained control of
> things (particularly firewalling and offering more services to the
> LAN machines).
> 
> To learn the basics of NAT (Network Address Translation), you
> should read the Handbook subchapter on "Network Address
> Translation" in the "Advanced Networking Chapter" (which in
> my current doc build is section .8 of chapter 24 [24.8].  I think
> my copy is relatively up to date ... if your doc build [assuming
> you have one] is older, the numbering system may vary slightly.
> 
> To learn the specifics, there is a section called "RUNNING NATD"
> in the natd(8) manual page; it covers the necessary information
> for enabling natd in the kernel, adding rules to ipfw(8), and so
> on.
> 
> Good luck, and welcome to FreeBSD!
> 
> Kevin Kinsey
> 
> *Heck, buy pizza for the family and I'll send ya the Dlink.... :-D
>