Topic: Bridging subnets

[tomwerner]

Hi,

I am trying to get my SME server (which is an intranet server) to be a bridge between two networks so that the two seperate subnets at the college i work at can access it. I have tried doing a setup where it is a public server, setting the internet as the second subnet that I want to access on the LAN. Any ideas why this might not be working or whether there is another way to do this? Or do i need to get hold of the Bridge patches for the kernel?

[arne]

I believe that all SME servers still use the 2.4.x kernel that does not support bridging by default. 2.6.x does such a support by default. I guess you will have to install a modified and recompiled kernel on the sme server to obtain bridging. Don't know if it is practicle possible. One Linux distro with a 2.4.x kernel that supports bridging is floppyfw http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/

[arne]

"so that the two seperate subnets at the college i work at can access it"

I'm not sure, but I think that you can obtain access between two subnets without bridging. Im not sure about the sme server, but I think that I have set up such a subnet to subnet communications trough other Linux routers (rather sure about that.)

From iptables configuration script:

# Enable forwarding
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

[tomwerner]

As arne said, I think the solution is routing as when i managed to brdige (using another distro) I bought the network to a grindng halt with a broadcast storm!

I will give the router capabilities a try in the next few days. Thanks for your help.

[arne]

"I believe that all SME servers still use the 2.4.x kernel"

This info supplied by me might be partly incorrect. I just discovered that the SME 7.0 beta 2 use the 2.6.9 Kernel. The 2.6.x kernels compiled for Centos will normally support bridging. (Have tried this.) Don't know if this is also true for the SME variant.