Very Computer

Hello

I have a problem that I am hoping that someone in the Linux
hardware/networking world can help me with.

I have 2 Linux boxes - one of which I would like to connect to an ISP
(Box A). The second box (Box B) is just to be connected to the first
one (Box A). (Box A will be accessed by the Internet community and Box
B will not). Thus far, I have been told of two ways that this may be done.

A) The first solution
        1) Purchase to ethernet cards and installing one in each machine
        2) Connecting these machines to a hub
        3) Connecting the hub to a gateway (that will hold the network
                addresses of my network and the network of the ISP)
        4) Connecting the gateway to the ISP

I also neglected to mention that I wanted to provide multiple IP addresses
to my machine. The way that I have seen this done is for one to establish
a dummy interface in the kernel, associate the interface with an IP address
and then finally associate the IP address with the hardware address of the
ethernet card.

I thought that this was the standard approach to the type of problem
I have. Am I going overboard or purchasing too much for what the job
requires?

B) The second solution
        1) Connect Machine A and Machine B using a peer-to-peer setup
        2) Purchase an ISDN terminal
        3) Attach it to the serial port.
        4) Attach the serial port to the ISDN line that will go to the
                provider (I have yet to understand how the routing would
                be done, if someone out there has an idea *please* let
                me know)

As I have mentioned before, I would like for the machine to be able to
respond to multiple IP addresses. The second approach has information
that comes in over a *serial* line and not an *ethernet card*. All
of the examples I have seen with the association of a dummy device have
used ethernet cards. Has anyone used a dummy device with the serial
port?

The second solution is to be much easier and much cheaper than the first
one. If this is the case, is there anyone out there who has gotten it to
work? What type of ISDN terminal did you use? Has anyone tried one from
Motorolla called the "Bitserver Pro". Suppose I wanted to add another
machine to the system sometime down the line, can it be done?

As of the present time, I am tempted to go with soulution A because
I have seen quite a number of people in this newsgroup use it as a
solution (even though I have found out that it is much more expensive).
 As I have mentioned before, I still
don't know how the routing is accomplished with the second solution
and I don't know what the success rate is.

I would really appreciate some advice in this matter - sorry about the
length, I just wanted to be clear :)

I'll be looking out here but e-mails are *greatly* appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Casey

: Hello

: I have a problem that I am hoping that someone in the Linux
: hardware/networking world can help me with.

: I have 2 Linux boxes - one of which I would like to connect to an ISP
: (Box A). The second box (Box B) is just to be connected to the first
: one (Box A). (Box A will be accessed by the Internet community and Box
: B will not). Thus far, I have been told of two ways that this may be done.

: A) The first solution
:       [ details removed ]

: B) The second solution
:       [ details removed ]

        Personnaly I would do the following:

                -       put 2 ethernet cards in Box A
                -       put 1 ethernet cards in Box B
                -       buy an external ISDN bridge or bridge/router
                        such as Ascend Pipeline 25 or 50 or Gandalf
                        5242
                -       connect Box A to bridge/router with first enet card
                -       connect Box A to Box B peer-to-peer

        This way you have a relatively inexpensive basic setup
        which is very scalable.  Later you will be able to add
        a hub and connect Box A and Box B (and Box C) to it.

        sj

I would put a thinnet between the system and a couple of cheap
NE2000 clones. This is <$100 for 10Mbit connection and a drop in.
Then either get an ISDN adaptor which has all the DSU/CSU stuff and
a BNC out the back, or an internal ISDN connector. I would setup
firewall code in the incoming box!

| As I have mentioned before, I would like for the machine to be able to
| respond to multiple IP addresses. The second approach has information
| that comes in over a *serial* line and not an *ethernet card*. All
| of the examples I have seen with the association of a dummy device have
| used ethernet cards. Has anyone used a dummy device with the serial
| port?

You don't use it on the serial port, you use it on the network
device (ppp0) or so my one attempt to do something like this tells
me.

| As of the present time, I am tempted to go with soulution A because
| I have seen quite a number of people in this newsgroup use it as a
| solution (even though I have found out that it is much more expensive).
|  As I have mentioned before, I still
| don't know how the routing is accomplished with the second solution
| and I don't know what the success rate is.

The hard part of this is getting your ISP to route two addresses to
your system. My ISP gave me nine addresses for one installation,
which is one for the PPP link, and eight for a three bit subnet for
the machines in the office. The gateway IP is the route for the
subnet. If your two addresses are in the same subnet and you have a
quality ISP you can do this easily.

The advantage to having one machine be a router is that it can also
be a firewall. My ISP (netheaven.com) does a great job of filtering
out source routed packets and other types of spoofs, but being a
belt and suspenders type I have firewall stuff inside, and TCP
wrappers on each machine in addition.

Having separate hardware for the ISDN, and all machines on the net
directly is the easiest, but using one machine for a firewall would
make me sleep better at night.