Help configuring openSUSE to a home wired network with a Linksys router

English Network/Internet
1

My 15meg down/2meg up internet is provided by a cable company through their modem to a Linksys BEFSR41 cable/dsl router with a 4-port switch. Connected to the router are three cables; two go to Windows 7 desktop machines, (one with a printer), and the third is shared by two laptops, one running XP3 and the other now a fully installed OpenSUSE-11.3-KDE4-LiveCD-i686 (OS).

While running Windows 7 or XP3, all computers can access each other’s documents, pictures & music files, print on the printer and connect directly to the internet. The Windows machines are all on a network named WORKGROUP and the IP address of the machines change based on which boots up first. (Addresses range from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.103 and any machine can end up with any IP address).

When connected to the router, the OS laptop can access the internet. If I enter the IP address of one desktop using “Add network folder” under Dolphin, I can see everything on that desktop. The second desktop, which also controls the printer, is not accessible no matter what I do. Neither desktop can see the OS machine from their respective Windows Network and Sharing Center.

I tried to enable sharing of OS files by doing a right click on them but I receive a message that “SMS or NFS servers are not installed on this machine, to enable this module the servers must be installed”. Now, I spent a couple hours downloading every possible patch and add-on that YaST said was available and don’t know how I could have missed one. But, regardless, I can’t enable sharing of the files on the OS laptop.

I messed with the OS installation for over a week and finally completely erased the hard disk & installed OS plus all its patches and add-ons for a second time. Now that everything is re-installed, I’ve decided to stop before touching anything and ask for help. (Should have done so a while back. LOL)

I would like the three computers to easily share files and to print on the printer. I’m not very knowledgeable of OS or networking terminology so you’ll need to go easy on me. Later, if all goes well, I’ll be moving all the machines to OS.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Al

al@linux-woca:~> /sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:B8:57:CF:4E
inet addr:192.168.1.101 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:b8ff:fe57:cf4e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:884 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:837 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:558989 (545.8 Kb) TX bytes:100062 (97.7 Kb)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:112 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:112 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:7888 (7.7 Kb) TX bytes:7888 (7.7 Kb)

al@linux-woca:~> cat /etc/resolv.conf

/etc/resolv.conf file autogenerated by netconfig!

Before you change this file manually, consider to define the

static DNS configuration using the following variables in the

/etc/sysconfig/network/config file:

NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST

NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS

NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER

or disable DNS configuration updates via netconfig by setting:

NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=’’

See also the netconfig(8) manual page and other documentation.

Note: Manual change of this file disables netconfig too, but

may get lost when this file contains comments or empty lines

only, the netconfig settings are same with settings in this

file and in case of a “netconfig update -f” call.

Please remove (at least) this line when you modify the file!

nameserver 167.206.245.130
nameserver 167.206.245.129

al@linux-woca:~> /sbin/route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 1 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

2

On Thu January 27 2011 08:06 pm, topcat7736 wrote:

>
> My 15meg down/2meg up internet is provided by a cable company through
> their modem to a Linksys BEFSR41 cable/dsl router with a 4-port switch.
> Connected to the router are three cables; two go to Windows 7 desktop
> machines, (one with a printer), and the third is shared by two laptops,
> one running XP3 and the other now a fully installed
> OpenSUSE-11.3-KDE4-LiveCD-i686 (OS).
>
> While running Windows 7 or XP3, all computers can access each other’s
> documents, pictures & music files, print on the printer and connect
> directly to the internet. The Windows machines are all on a network
> named WORKGROUP and the IP address of the machines change based on which
> boots up first. (Addresses range from 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.103 and
> any machine can end up with any IP address).
>
> When connected to the router, the OS laptop can access the internet. If
> I enter the IP address of one desktop using “Add network folder” under
> Dolphin, I can see everything on that desktop. The second desktop, which
> also controls the printer, is not accessible no matter what I do.
> Neither desktop can see the OS machine from their respective Windows
> Network and Sharing Center.
>
> I tried to enable sharing of OS files by doing a right click on them
> but I receive a message that “SMS or NFS servers are not installed on
> this machine, to enable this module the servers must be installed”. Now,
> I spent a couple hours downloading every possible patch and add-on that
> YaST said was available and don’t know how I could have missed one. But,
> regardless, I can’t enable sharing of the files on the OS laptop.
>
> I messed with the OS installation for over a week and finally
> completely erased the hard disk & installed OS plus all its patches and
> add-ons for a second time. Now that everything is re-installed, I’ve
> decided to stop before touching anything and ask for help. (Should have
> done so a while back. LOL)
>
> I would like the three computers to easily share files and to print on
> the printer. I’m not very knowledgeable of OS or networking terminology
> so you’ll need to go easy on me. Later, if all goes well, I’ll be moving
> all the machines to OS.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Al
>
<snip>
topcat7736;

For Windows File/Print sharing you should configure Samba on the Linux box.
These HowTos may help you sort this all out:

http://opensuse.swerdna.org/suselanprimer.html
http://opensuse.swerdna.org/susesambawin7.html
and
http://opensuse.swerdna.org/susesambaprint.html

–
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green

3

Hello topcat 7736,

While you are trying to get hold of the information given to you by venzkep above, I see that this is your first post. Thus welcome here. We hope you will enjoy.

BTW, next time that you copy/paste computer text here please wrap it in CODE tags, this will retain the lay-out and make it better readble: Posting in Code Tags - A Guide

4

If you have openSUSE firewall running on your computer you will need to allow the Samba Client service in the firewall configuration to be able to browse your Windows network.

Regards,
Neil Darlow

5

Hello and welcome Topcat7736. BTW, I am using Gnome Desktop so KDE may have different names or options.

I’m not running OpenSuSe 11.3 but in 11.2 and 11.1 the easiest method is to enable sharing of Public folders.
Select from the taskbar | Applications | Systems | More Programs | “Personal File Sharing” and select share files over network. Any files or folders placed in that folder will be shared on the network.
Once you enable Public sharing, you can select whatever folders you want to share from (Dolphin or Nautilus), right click and select Sharing Options, give it a share name, allow others to share, etc.
Then the folders and files you’re sharing should show as available to your Windows PCs.

OTOH, as noted in the posts above you can setup Samba for a more definitive sharing of folders and printers.
Both methods, you may have all your music on the OpenSuse 11.3 folder Music then you could set up Samba to share that folder on your network or using Personal File Sharing drag the Music folder to the /home/userid/Public folder.

You may be able to select “Personal File Sharing” from the Application Browser if you have that on you menu.

6

Hello and welcome again Topcat7736. I thought I’d also mention that some routers have the ability to assign or reserve IP addresses to a specific MAC addresses.

In ifconfig that would be your HWaddress
HWaddr **00:E0:B8:57:CF:4E
**
Maybe your router will allow you to reserve
DHCP IP address inet addr:192.168.1.101
for MAC/HWaddr 00:E0:B8:57:CF:4E

and forever afterwards it should have 192.168.1.101

A reason to use reserved IP addr is that it frees up IP addresses
when a friend visits for a LAN party or just to use your network.

7

I apologize for not responding back to you helpful folks sooner.

Henk,
Thanks for both the welcome and heads up about the “CODE” tags. I thought others had a fancy text editor when I saw some of their posts.

Neil,
I turned off Kaspersky Internet Security on all the Windows machines and also turned off the firewall of OS to no avail. It was one of the first things I tried because, in the past, I’ve seen firewalls and security programs cause a “failure to communicate”. But, thanks for your help anyway.

tararpharazon,
Thanks for the welcome and for offering your ideas to help me.

venzkep (Red Green),
What more can I say than “you’re the man” (or maybe the wo-man LOL)!! A really big THANK YOU for posting those three links.

Mr. Swerdna’s site contains every snippet of everything needed to do anything associated with Linux/Windows networking. While it took me a while to locate the proper commands within OS to do the functions he said to do, once I did them everything worked perfectly. I was shocked that only a few lines in the Samba file could accomplish so much. Over the past couple weeks I tried a huge number of combinations that people said had done the job for them and none worked for me. But, his total of fifteen or so lines now makes up my entire smb.conf file and all the machines are linked together and function as perfectly as when only operating with Windows. Anyone who needs to network Windows and OS machines together should start at Mr. Swerdna’s site and not try to do things on their own.

Once again, thank you all for your help in getting my machine running properly.

8

On Sat January 29 2011 11:36 pm, topcat7736 wrote:

<snip>
>
> venzkep (-Red Green-),
> What more can I say than “you’re the man” (or maybe the wo-man LOL)!!
> A really big THANK YOU for posting those three links.
>
> Mr. Swerdna’s site contains every snippet of everything needed to do
> anything associated with Linux/Windows networking. While it took me a
> while to locate the proper commands within OS to do the functions he
> said to do, once I did them everything worked perfectly. I was shocked
> that only a few lines in the Samba file could accomplish so much. Over
> the past couple weeks I tried a huge number of combinations that people
> said had done the job for them and none worked for me. But, his total of
> fifteen or so lines now makes up my entire smb.conf file and all the
> machines are linked together and function as perfectly as when only
> operating with Windows. Anyone who needs to network Windows and OS
> machines together should start at Mr. Swerdna’s site and not try to do
> things on their own.
>
> Once again, thank you all for your help in getting my machine running
> properly.
>
topcat7736;

Glad to hear you have it all sorted out. Enjoy your network! And you should
thank swerdna for writing such fine Howtos, they save a lot of typing on my
part.

–
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green