Setting up a small home network

[drquest]

Does anyone know where I can find files explaining how and what I need to set up my first home network.

[spresley]

what kind of computers are you connecting? Are you sharing a broadband line? I found some help at http://www.linuxdoc.org they have some HOWTOs if you're setting up a linux based network or even a linux/windoze network...

[TheLinuxDuck]

What is your experience with setting up NIC's with IP's and using switches/hubs?

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TheLinuxDuck
Wait... that's a penguin?!?!?
:wq

[drquest]

I just enough experience to get me by, but thats it.The NIC cards I know how to install but I don't know anything about setting up the software, the hub again I know how to set up, and the swiches NOTHING...

[larryliberty]

It's actually pretty easy. You don't need switches, just a hub. You'll need two NIC's for your gateway machine (the one that will connect to the outside world via modem/DSL/cable modem) and one each for the others.

In your gateway machine configure eth0 (your first NIC) to point to the outside world, and pick a subnet for eth1 (192.168.1.x will do nicely). Assign 192.168.1.x addresses to your machines. Any decent firewall (I use gShield: http://muse.linuxmafia.org) will have IP masquerading, which will allow you to access the internet from any machine on your network.

For an extra measure of safety, you can use TCP wrappers on any services you run through inetd, and set up your hosts.allow and hosts.deny files to deny any connections to these services from the outside.

Larry


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