[plug] Gateways and Windoze

[Leon Brooks]

Bret Busby wrote:
> We have a firewall/gateway set up using ipchains and Red Hat 6.0. On the same
> box, the server, we have samba operational, which apparently works with the
> Windoze 95 on Anne's computer.

> I am running Red Hat 5.2 with Netscape Communicator 4.07 on my computer, for
> Internet access.

> The problem is that Anne wants to use IE4 for Internet access on her computer,
> as apparently she can use key combinations instead of a mouse, as using a mouse
> gives her problems, due to too many hours over too many years at computers and
> computer terminals.

She can not only do this with Netscape as well, but Netscape gives her
total control over her keyboard combinations, which IE does not.

One thing I miss from the default OS/2 web browser thing was a drop-down
list of links on this page, but I'm sure you could get such a menu put
into Mozilla without much trouble, as an accessibility feature.

> But, while connecting my computer running Red Hat 5.2 to the Internet, via the
> gateway, is no problem, we cannot get either Windoze 95 or Windoze NT to connect
> to the Internet via the gateway. She can access web pages on our intranet web
> server, which is the gateway server, but cannot get out to the Internet via the
> gateway on the server.

Just to be absolutely clear, "my computer" is a different machine from
the gateway box, yes?

It sounds like your Windows machines are not using DNS correctly. Check
your Windows boxes (Right-click on network, choose properties, TCP/IP)
and make sure that: name service is enabled, and point it to your
gateway box (DNS should be running on the gateway, with your ISP's name
servers nominated as forwarders) - your Windows TCP/IP is set up
correctly (machine's IP, netmask etc) - your Windows machine uses your
gateway machine as it's ethernet gateway.

Many Linux distributions (yes, I know, not Debian) install and run DNS
(and many other services that you may or may not want or need in any
situation) more or less by default, so your own Linux box is probably
using its own name server to resolve names. You can check this instantly
by browsing by IP address instead (try http://203.38.43.77/ or
http://203.38.63.160/ for examples) on a Windows machine. Win 9[58]
doesn't come with a DNS and if I recall correctly you have to go to some
trouble to get DNS working under NT (maybe it's part of MS-Proxy? It's
been a _long_ time since I've tinkered with DNS under NT).

-- 
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.
If at first you don't succeed, try a shorter bungee. When in trouble,
when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. The two great secrets
of success are: don't tell anyone everything that you know.