Benjamin Sher wrote:
> Dear friends:
>
> After a week of trials and tribulations and several reinstalls of LM 8.0, I
> finally figured out how LM 8.0's Internet Sharing works. I am not a hundred
> per cent certain of this. But I think my conclusions are probably correct.
>
> Right after first installing LM 8.0, I successfully installed Internet
> Sharing using both Linuxconf and Mandrake Control Center, Networking. I think
> I was just lucky. It lasted a good week and a half. During this period I was
> spent much of my time testing the "halt" patch for Pierre Fortin and as a
> result did an awful lot of shutdowns and reboots. Yet, my Internet
> Connection and Internet Sharing (i.e. sharing my ADSL line with a second
> computer) worked flawlessly.
>
> I then did something stupid (I don't recall what) or perhaps something just
> went wrong with LM 8.0 and I lost my Internet Connection, etc. I was never
> able to get it back. So, I reinstalled my system several times, each time
> experimenting with different things. Meanwhile, I had read comments by some
> of Mandrake's experts and users to the effect that LM 8.0 was still unstable
> in parts and that this was also true of the new Mandrake Control Center and
> especially of Internet Sharing.
>
> One thing seems obvious: it's best to use either Linuxconf (if you know how
> to do that) or the Mandrake Control Center or the command line or Webmin to
> establish Internet Sharing but it's better NOT to mix these methods. Stick
> with one.
>
> Now, I discovered during my install that LM 8.0 often misconfigures devices
> or suggests the wrong course of action. For example, it wrongly configured my
> floppy in /etc/fstab as /dev/zip instead of /dev/fd0. It also picked the
> wrong Okidata printer from their list, something that LM 7.2 had no problem
> doing with precision.
>
> Now, back to Networking. if you are configuring a single ADSL or Cable card
> (eth0, there should be no problem allowing LM 8.0 to configure it for you
> during install. However, if you are setting up a LAN with Internet Sharing, I
> would advise against it. LM 8.0 insisted on configuring my LAN during install
> instead of DSL. That screwed up Internet Sharing after install. On the other
> hand, if I selected DSL, it did correctly find both of my NIC cards and
> correctly configured them, using pppoe but then, after install, when I went
> into KDE and tried to connect, I found that it had not been configured after
> all. So, it was back to the Mandrake Control Center, Networking, Connection.
>
> So, it may well be better NOT to configure your NIC cards at all (if you have
> more than one and are planning on setting up a LAN with Internet Sharing).
>
> Here is what I would recommend, based on my limited experience:
>
> Skip Network configuration entirely during install. Then, after install, in
> KDE or Gnome go Mandrake Control Center, Networking, Connection. Now click on
> Configure at the bottom right. Now configure your ADSL, both eth0 and eth1,
> then press OK. By the way, I would advise using two entirely different NIC
> cards for eth0 and eth1, i.e. each one should use a different kernel module.
> In my case, eth0 is a 3com (3c59x module) card and eth1 is syslink (tulip
> module) card. Now, click on Connect at the upper part of the box. This will
> connect you to the Internet using ADSL or Cable. Now, you can reboot if you
> wish in order to see both cards recognized during boot-up. They should both
> receive green check marks next to them (eth0 -- green check mark; eth1 --
> green check mark).
>
> Now, go back into Mandrake Control Center, Networking and select Internet
> Sharing. Do NOT select LAN. I don't know why. But instead of configuring your
> connection, then your LAN and then your Internet Sharing (which always
> resulted in some sort of configuration conflict in Internet Sharing, it's
> best, from my experience, to proceed directly from Configure DSL (or Cable)
> Internet Connection to Internet Sharing, skipping the LAN configuration part
> entirely.
>
> When I did this, i.e. when I click on Internet Sharing after configuring my
> eth0 and eth1 (see above), everything worked perfectly. No conflicts this
> time. Instead, Internet Sharing already knew about and recognized both of my
> NIC cards and advised me that it would now configure my SECOND (eth1) card,
> i.e. "tulip" and told me that it would use this card as my Network Adaptor to
> my LAN. It then proceeded to create the LAN. It advised me to insert CD 1 and
> installed a number of files necessary for Internet Sharing.
>
> That was it. And the rest is history. I rebooted Computer B and instantly had
> ADSL in both computers. And the same speed, too: 1250/s downstream and 315/s
> upstream. Steady and reliable from Mindspring/Covad (Highly recommended. In
> fact, superlative ADSL service -- though I should state for the record that
> we own shares in Covad).
>
> I certainly hope that LM 8.1 will improve upon LM 8.0 in many areas,
> especially in the matter of Internet Sharing. I am sure it will. It's a joy
> to have automatic Internet Sharing in LM8.0. But, it can be hell trying to
> deal with what is either a buggy configuration tool or else unnecessarily
> difficult or not sufficiently documented, lacking step-by-step instructions.
>
> The above is my exprience. Being only an ordinary user, I am not really sure
> how accurate it is. I hope some of the masters on our list will correctly me
> on this but, please, only AFTER you have FULLY familiarized yourselves with
> this new tool or any of the graphical tools for Internet Sharing.
>
> For this reason, I will not send this message to the Newbie list. I am not
> sure that I really understand this well enough even as a user and I am not
> entirely confident about my instructions.
>
> Hope somebody who really knows this stuff takes my instructions and corrects
> or fine-tunes them and in PLAIN ENGLISH, offering step-by-step instructions
> on how to precisely use the Mandrake Control Center, Networking or Linuxconf
> or Webmin to establish Internet Sharing. It would be a great service to all
> of us.
>
> Hope I have helped in some way.
>
> Thanks for listening.
>
> Benjamin
>
> --
> Sher's Russian Web
> http://www.websher.net
> Benjamin and Anna Sher
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Internet sharing is truly a wonderful thing, but in my case I found the answer
to be a used $20 barebones P-100 with 2 cheap ne2k-pci cards running coyote
linux. It puts up a fairly decent firewall out of the box, and doesnt use ANY of
my main machines cycles.
Gene
