Hello, Sorry for the non-linux question, but I haven't found an answer elsewhere.
I have a functioning network of two Debian boxes, bravo (10.0.0.2) and peon (10.0.0.1). bravo is capable of IP routing, forwarding, and masquerading. peon has a fully-functioning TCP/IP connection with bravo, and when bravo dials in to the internet, peon's traffic is forwarded appropriately. I am trying to add to this network my fiancee's Win98 machine, named gow, with IP 10.0.0.3. gow is physically connected to the network through the same (Netgear 4-port) hub as the two Debian boxes; plugging in its cable illuminates the "connected" light on the port. Assigning a static IP, however, left gow unable to ping or be pinged. I set up dhcpd on bravo, and told gow to use that, and something interesting happened: gow correctly recives its IP information, sends 6 or 9 netbios broadcasts, and then stops sending traffic over the ethernet. Here is a "tcpdump | grep gow" : 18:58:04.943737 bravo.study.bootps > gow.study.bootpc: xid:0x721ddc08 Y:gow.study S:bravo.study [|bootp] [tos 0x10] 18:58:04.944643 arp who-has gow.study tell gow.study 18:58:05.848933 gow.study > 224.0.0.2: icmp: router solicitation 18:58:06.618817 gow.study.netbios-ns > 10.0.0.255.netbios-ns: [five more of these over the next second] 19:00:51.832071 bravo.study.bootps > gow.study.bootpc: xid:0xcf05ee00 Y:gow.study S:bravo.study [|bootp] [tos 0x10] 19:00:51.833017 arp who-has gow.study tell gow.study 19:00:52.825376 gow.study > 224.0.0.2: icmp: router solicitation 19:00:53.574929 gow.study.netbios-ns > 10.0.0.255.netbios-ns: [five more of these over the next second] However, after the boot is completed, I'm not able to ping or be pinged; no packet is sent to the hub (neither the light flashes nor does tcpdump show anything), and the error message on the windows box is "Request timed out." Furthermore, attempting (via winipcfg) to renew the DHCP lease gives 'Error: DHCP Server Unavailable: Renewing Adapter "*"'. Releasing the correct information obtained on boot and renewing again gives the same error, after which --- get this --- the IP assigned is 169.254.136.191! To summarize: 1. peon and bravo, two Debian boxes, are fully and correctly connected to each other. 2. gow, a win98 box on the same physical hub, correctly reads DHCP on boot and then stops sending packets to the hub. I believe I have eliminated: 1. DNS, since it doesn't work with IP numbers, either 2. Masquerading, since it's the local network that's broken 3. Faulty equipment, since a) the 'connected' light comes on when the card is plugged in b) gow correctly obtains its internet configuration on boot c) putting bravo's NIC in gow (though not the other way) exhibited the same behavior. My only possible lead is the line from tcpdump that says: 19:03:24.154942 gow.study > 224.0.0.2: icmp: router solicitation I don't know where this is configured, if it is configurable, but my local network is 10.0.0.0 (with netmask 255.0.0.0). Any advice, FMs to R, diagnostics to run, programs to install, etc. are more than welcome. I have been tooling around with this for weeks and I just want it to work. Thank you for any help. Rob -- You can rent this space for only $5 a week.