[SOLVED] Wired Networking Between Ubuntu and Vista

[Subtle_Demise]

So my wireless card no longer works in my windows machine for some odd reason, probably due to the temporary video card I have until my actual one comes back from XFX. It works perfectly in the Ubuntu box though, so I bought a crossover cable hoping to have it automatically create a wired network that I can bridge to my router. Obviously it's not that simple.

Anyway, I have the computers connected through crossover cable and they sort of know there's supposed to be some form of networking going on (Windows has limited connectivity on "unkown network" while Ubuntu just won't connect to Auto eth0), but that's as far as I get. basically all I need is to:

1. Get the computers to connect to and communicate with each other.

2. Bridge the wired connection with the wireless one within Ubuntu so that the Windows computer can access the Internet as well as the shared files on the other computers in the wireless network.

And no, I do not want to buy another wireless adapter. Thanks in advance.

I'm running 10.04 Lucid with Gnome desktop, if it makes a difference.

[Mudgen]

Basically, you need to get eth0 active on Ubuntu, and in /etc/sysctl.conf put
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
to turn on routing. Hard code a non-conflicting address for the wired cards on each end, like 10.2.3.1 on Ubuntu and 10.2.3.2 on Windows, and set 10.2.3.1 as the default rout e on the Windows side. That's the general idea, ymmv, more than one way to skin the cat, particularly to set up persistent ipforwarding.

To activate the sysctl setting without rebooting, do
sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf

Edit: That does not "bridge" as you say you want, it routes instead.

[Subtle_Demise]

Alright, I've made a little progress, I think, but Windows connection is still Local Only.

I have attached two images to show what my settings are for both Windows and Ubuntu. Is something not right with these? I've also tried using dhcpd3 and firestarter before posting this thread to achieve the same results, but to no avail. I've uninstalled the programs and commented out dhcpd3's configuration files, so there shouldn't be any conflict.

[keikun2004]

1 - On the windows side :
Change the DNS servers to a real servers, open the file /etc/resolve.conf in the linux PC, check for lines starting with nameserver and write the two first IP addresses found in those lines in the preferred and alternate DNS server.
2 - On the linux side :
Remove the Gateway and DNS server IP addresses.

Now, if you have succeeded in setting up the ip forwarding, you can go on internet correctly from your windows PC.

Good luck
Hope it helps

[Mudgen]

1 - On the windows side :
Change the DNS servers to a real servers, open the file /etc/resolve.conf in the linux PC, check for lines starting with nameserver and write the two first IP addresses found in those lines in the preferred and alternate DNS server.
2 - On the linux side :
Remove the Gateway and DNS server IP addresses.

Now, if you have succeeded in setting up the ip forwarding, you can go on internet correctly from your windows PC.

Good luck
Hope it helps

That's /etc/resolv.conf, but I agree with those changes. If you still have problems, one thing to let us know is whether Linux continues to be able to access Internet over its wireless.

[previso]

Is there an internet connection sharing setting in Vista? It will set up your Vista as a router/access point.
Step by step Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) setup in Vista | Windows Reference

[Mudgen]

Is there an internet connection sharing setting in Vista? It will set up your Vista as a router/access point.
Step by step Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) setup in Vista | Windows Reference

Windows is the side with only one interface. He needs connection sharing/routing on the Linux side.

[Subtle_Demise]

Thanks for the help so far, but I'm having some issues still. At first editing eth0 wouldn't let me apply the changes after I removed the gateway and DNS. I tried it again and it worked though, except the gateway was automatically changed to 0.0.0.0 (maybe I shouldn't be using the GUI for this?). Still no Internet on the Windows side, do I have to reboot either one of the machines for the changes to take effect?

[Mudgen]

From a command window on Windows and a terminal window on Linux,
--can you ping the other address?
--does "arp -a" show the other side's physical (MAC) address?

If those are working, we have connectivity, what we're probably missing is NAT on the Linux side. I'm not a good iptables hacker, your easiest way to set up NAT might be to reinstall Firestarter and run the setup wizard. If arp shows the other side but ping doesn't work, we need to look at the IP setup more closely.

[Subtle_Demise]

I tried to ping the Windows computer and I ended up just using ctrl+C to quit the process. Pinging the Linux box from Windows told me that the host was unreachable.

arp turned up these results:

? (192.168.2.1) at 00:17:3f:5d:55:21 [ether] on wlan0

It doesn't match the Physical address of my NIC. I'm guessing it's only seeing my router judging by the IP address and the fact that it's on wlan.