[TriLUG] NAT / home network connectivity problem

[Alan Ellis]

I have an old Dell Optiplex GXPro running RedHat 7.2.  It is doing IP
Masq / NAT for my family's Win95 machine.  Ethernet configuration is:
eth1: Linksys 10/100 LNE100TX v5.1 => cable modem
eth0: built-in 3c905 with 3c59x module => 192.168.0.1

The win95 machine (192.168.0.2) has a 3com Fast Etherlink 10/100
Bus-Master PCI card.  This is connected directly to eth0 by a 20-foot
crossover cable.

Everything works *great* except that whenever we turn the win95 machine
on the two machines can't even ping each other.  Consistently I can
solve the problem by unplugging the crossover cable from eth0 and
plugging it back in, and then the win95 machine can see both the NAT
server and the outside world.  Anybody know a better solution?  Or where
the problem is likely to be?

Thanks!
--Alan


BTW (to follow up on an earlier thread) I did get Time Warner to come
install cable for RoadRunner.  I removed the hard drives temporarily
from my Linux box and swapped in a hard drive with Win98.  The tech
looked at this long enough to check system requirements (32MB RAM, 110MB
free, and no conflicts in device manager) then handed me the RR software
CD.  I shelved the CD, replaced the hard drives, and was in business in
minutes (though a little surprised when Linux knew the hostname that had
been recorded in Win98!).  Thanks again to those who advised this
solution.