Very Computer

I just installed Red Hat 9 last week and decided to dive into the
world of Linux.  Since then I've spent many hours getting various
devices/services/programs to work correctly, but I still have one
general problem.

I'll preface by saying these questions can be found in some form or
another all over this newsgroup, but unfortunately the answers given
and even NAG weren't enough for me to figure out how to solve my
problems.

In our house we have 3 computers connecting to the internet through a
Netgear MR314 wireless router.  2 are windows XP boxes that I don't
administer and one is my windows XP/Linux box.  The router is setup to
assign IP addresses dynamically and the other users on the network
would like to keep it that way.  None of the XP installations have any
problems networking.  I'm running a 1ghz athlon with a Realtek 8139
ethernet card (my computer is the only computer not using a wireless
card).  I can see other computers (well one of them, the other is
having home xp probs) and I can connect to the internet without any
difficulty (Red Hat had this all working at install).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section lists my problems/attempted resolutions.

1)  I am getting the following error message at startup:

"Could not look up internet address for
slice.  This could prevent RED HAT from operating correctly.  It may
be
possible to correct the problem by adding slice to the file
/etc/hosts."

I found several posts with solutions to this problem but I don't think
any of the solutions I found were optimal.

** The first one I ran across was just to add:

127.0.0.1 slice

to my etc/hosts file.  This makes sendmail take forever on startup,
and also I found myself asking why RED HAT wouldn't have just done
that itself if that was the way to go.  I plan on playing with
sendmail (and just about everything else I can get my hands on) so I
don't want to have to disable it.  Additionally I still run into the
next set of problems so I don't know if that entry really got me
anywhere.

** The second solution I found was a script that added my host with
its current IP address to the etc/hosts file.  This one looked
interesting but I wasn't sure if it should be necessary to write a
script for what seems like a pretty simple network configuration

**  The third solution I saw was just to assign my interanl IP address
statically and hard-code it into etc/hosts.  This seems OK but I would
like to be able to use DHCP and don't see any reason why I shouldn't
be able to.

2) My next problem is really just an annoyance.  Whenever I try to run
xkobo and also some other applications (I think LimeWire install is
one) I get:

Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

xlwin: can't open display

** The only solution I've found that works here is to type: xhost
+localhost.  I think I also found somewhere that this could be added
to a configuration file.  I also read many people talking about
security issues with this solution.  There has to be some way to set
up my computer so that it can run these programs without introdcuing
security risks.

3)  My last problem is that I can't get mldonkey working (and I'm
pretty sure it's because of my ip address).  mldonkey requires my ip
address in order to communicate with a server.  In the box that should
have my address it says "localhost" which I'm pretty sure is no good.

**  I ran across a solution to this that involved manually overriding
the ip address to tell mldonkey where I'm at (using the router's ip
address).  It also said I had to specify partiular ports to route to
my computer from the router.  I looked in my admin panel and couldn't
find out how to do this.  Also, what if I had two boxes that both
wanted to use mldonkey?  In general, how do you differentiate the
three boxes sitting behind the same router (if you are external to the
network)?  I eventually want to set up apache so I'm curious where
I'll tell dynip to point.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section contains screen prints of my configuration.  

I've included the ones I think might be relevant, but then again I
don't really know what I'm doing so please ask for anything else I
should have provided.

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1               localhost.localdomain localhost
# 127.0.0.1               slice

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:40:F4:1D:8C:A7
          inet addr:192.168.0.4  Bcast:192.168.0.255
Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:12330 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14223 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:8127855 (7.7 Mb)  TX bytes:2057667 (1.9 Mb)
          Interrupt:11 Base address:0xa000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:363810 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:363810 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:25430447 (24.2 Mb)  TX bytes:25430447 (24.2 Mb)

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window
irtt Iface
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0        
0 eth0
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U         0 0        
0 eth0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U         0 0        
0 lo
0.0.0.0         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0        
0 eth0

querying * on 192.168.0.255
name_query failed to find name *

This used to work.  I think one box is suffering home xp tcp/ip
security issues and the other is off.  Should this have found the
router?

My router address is 192.168.0.1 (I know this from its control panel).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is my conclusion.

I would greatly appreciate any help you can throw my way.  I'm
guessing that these problems aren't just isolated but point to an
unhealthy networking setup.  I imagine you'll want me to provide you
with more information about my setup, so please just ask.  I apologize
if these questions seem dumb, all I can say is that I've spent some
amount of time trying to find the best solutions.  In addition to the
solution I'd like to know why it's the best solution and why RedHat
didn't configure it that way when it installed.  Thanks,

Jon Flaherty

[...]

Quote:> In our house we have 3 computers connecting to the internet through a
> Netgear MR314 wireless router.  2 are windows XP boxes that I don't
> administer and one is my windows XP/Linux box.  The router is setup to
> assign IP addresses dynamically and the other users on the network
> would like to keep it that way.  None of the XP installations have any

this i question.  do you have more than one ip being assigned by the
network provider?  are _you_ that provider?

they way i understand it, under normal broadband contracts with individuals,
you only get a single ip address.  more requires a commercial account.

the router takes that address and then creates a lan network with its
own ip addresses, and in my case they are static.  i don't recall having
to do anything to the node network setting after installing the router,
it just happened automagically.

iirc, the lan addresses are assigned 192.0.0.1,2,3 etc.      --Loren

Sorry I should have been more clear.  I only have one ip address, we
get assigned "internal" (not sure if I'm using the right word) ip
addresses by the router dynamically.  I know that our computers ask
the router for an ip address each time (mine just changed to
192.168.0.2 after a power outage today).  I know I can set these
statically as well, and if that is the solution and that is what I
need to put in /etc/hosts I'm game.  My housemates just want to be
able to use  DHCP with the router.  Thanks for your response,
Jon

well, mine may change after a power outage, depending on what the
current lan configuration looks like.  but i meant that the DHCP address
provided to the router may change w/o any change to the local ip's.

Quote:> statically as well, and if that is the solution and that is what I
> need to put in /etc/hosts I'm game.  My housemates just want to be
> able to use  DHCP with the router.  Thanks for your response, > Jon

sounds like you have a handle on it.     --Loren

Unlikely.

Quote:>they way i understand it, under normal broadband contracts with individuals,
>you only get a single ip address.  more requires a commercial account.

Right.

Quote:>the router takes that address and then creates a lan network with its
>own ip addresses, and in my case they are static.  i don't recall having
>to do anything to the node network setting after installing the router,
>it just happened automagically.

Actually, typical routers these days come with DHCP enabled, supporting
NAT for connecting a LAN with the outside world.

Quote:>iirc, the lan addresses are assigned 192.0.0.1,2,3 etc.

No. Standard setup should be a 192.168.0.0/24 network, with the router
using 192.168.0.1. As long as the OP selects the right setup for
his network connection _and_ makes sure that the default route is
poitning to the router's internal IP address, the connection should
work immediately.

Michael
--

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