setting up a server for a small office LAN

[thesmithman]

Hi all,

I know this is a total newbie question but I've already spent far too much time trying to figure it out, and answers from Google search results have been all over the place so I'm hoping some of the Bytes community members might have some insight.

I'm trying to set up a tiny local network. This network is for application testing, so it will not connect to the Internet at all. I only need the machines to be able to talk to each other, and that's it.

Have an Ubuntu box running Apache server. I set a static local IP address for it in /etc/network/interfaces and that seems to be working fine (the machine can reach its own static IP over HTTP, and it behaves as expected).

Have a Windows box running XP and will be connecting other machines to the network when I get this sorted out. In the hosts file on the Windows computer, I have associated the local IP address of the Ubuntu computer with that computer's name.

Have a cheap network switch, model # SMCFS5 by SMC Networks.

Both computers are plugged into the switch via their Ethernet ports.

From the Windows machine, when I try to ping the Ubuntu box's static local IP over the LAN, I get nothing, just a timeout.

From the Ubuntu box, when I try to ping the Windows box's IP address while monitoring the network activity from the Windows machine, I can see that the ping data packets are being received, but the Windows machine does not respond. I have enabled HTTP traffic and ping replies in the Windows firewall for the LAN, but it has not solved the problem.

I'm probably overlooking something obvious, but I'm stuck. I would sure appreciate any pointers. Thanks!

[Banfa]

Have you set up a static IP on the Windows machine as well? You will probably need to so that both computers are on the same sub-net.

For example suppose you Ubuntu machine has the following IP address and subnet mask

IP Address: 192.168.20.50
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

The subnet mask indicates which bit the IP address corresponds to the subnet which you can find by anding (bitwise and) the IP Address and subnet mask, that gives 192.168.20.0

Effectively for 2 computers to be on the same subnet then for ever bit that is 1 in the subnet mask the value of the same bit in both IP addresses must be the same (either both 1 or both 0).

If the computers are not on the same subnet they will not be able to communicate on a simple network (one with just simple switches and no routers).

Also make sure all your ethernet cables are wire straight and do not crossover.

[thesmithman]

Thanks Banfa,

That totally did it! I really appreciate your pointer, thanks for the tip; you saved my hair, I was ready to pull it out.