Topic: Initial Setup Problems (Newb)

[Jamey]

I've setup several web / email servers on Microsoft platforms.  I'm new to Linux.

I want to run a web / email server from home.  I'm behind a "firewall," so I installed SME as a server-only.  I initally had a Netgear FA311 card in the box, which was not recognized and, being new to Linux drivers, I swtiched out the card for a Netgear FA310TX, which was recognized as a Lite-On (Tulip) card.

I set up the parameters as follows.

Local IP address -- static IP obtained from ISP
Subnet -- 255.255.255.0
Gateway -- ISP gateway

Diagram of setup:

wireless ISP -->  HomePortal Router/Firewall --> 10/100 Switch --> SME server
                                             |                                |
                                             |                                |
                                        Workstation              Workstation
                                           (HPNA)                  

The Netgear Card and 10/100 switch both get green lights for connectivity.  

The Problem:

I cannot connect to or ping the SME server over the net or the LAN.  Other than pinging the server, is there an internal diagnostic to verify that the Netgear card is establishing a connection?  Any other obvious issues I'm missing.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[Jamey]

The diagram was messed up a little during formating.  It should indiate that there is one workstation connected via HPNA to the router's bridge and another workstation connected to the 10/100 Enet switch along with the SME server.

[Jamey]

Well the problem appears to be the Homeportal router.  It will not let you disable DHCP.  If I feed the SME server an IP in the DHCP range...all is well with the world...feed the static IP, on the other hand...

I'd just kill the router and use the SME server as the gateway, but I need the HPNA bridge in the HomePortal for a portion of my network.

Hmmmm.

[Jamey]

There's apparently no way to disable DHCP on the HomePortal or change the IP range from the default choices.  Looks like I'll have to pick up another NIC and configure the server as a gateway on the other side of the router.

[Bill Talcott]

If you want to start messing with stuff already, you can try adding a HomePNA card to the SME as a second local interface. http://www.chrouch.com/e-smith/il.o is the compiled (on 5.0) HomePNA 2.0 driver for the Broadcom-based cards. SME isn't designed for multiple local interfaces, so it may take some work, but you'd probably be really happy with the resulting product if you did get it working.

[Jamey]

I was able to resolve the problem by setting up the SME box as a server - gateway.  I have the external NIC set to the static IP provided by my ISP.  I turned the internal SME DHCP server ON and set my Homeportal router to accept DHCP assignments for the broadband connection.  The Homeportal's DHCP server then feeds my workstations.  So we have:

ISP (static IP) --> SME Server (DHCP) --> Homeportal Router (DHCP) --> workstations.  

So far so good.  Thanks for the reply and emails.