Share the Internet connection with other local machines

drakgw

Principles

This is useful when you have a computer (3) which has Internet (2) access and is connected also to a local network (1). You can use computer (3) as a gateway to give that access to other workstations (5) and (6) in the local network (1). For this, the gateway must have two interfaces; the first one such as an ethernet card must be connected to the local network, and the second one (4) connected to the Internet (2).

The first step is to verify that the network and the access to Internet are set up, as documented in the section called “Network Center”.

Gateway wizard

The wizard[23] offers successive steps which are shown below:

  • If the wizard does not detect at least two interfaces, it warns about this and asks to stop the network and configure the hardware.

  • specify the interface used for the Internet connection. The wizard automatically suggests one of the interfaces, but you should verify that what is proposed is correct.

  • specify which interface is used for the Lan access. The wizard also proposes one, check that this is correct.

  • The wizard proposes parameters for the Lan network, such as IP address, mask and domain name. Check that these parameters are compatible with the actual configuration. It is recommended that you accept these values.

  • specify if the computer has to be used as a DNS server. If yes, the wizard will check that bind is installed. Otherwise, you have to specify the address of a DNS server.

  • specify if the computer is to be used as a DHCP server. If yes, the wizard will check that dhcp-server is installed and offer to configure it, with start and end addresses in the DHCP range.

  • specify if the computer is to be used as a proxy server. If yes, the wizard will check that squid is installed and offer to configure it, with the address of the administrator (admin@mydomain.com), name of the proxy (myfirewall@mydomaincom), the port (3128) and the cache size (100 Mb).

  • The last step allows you to check if the gateway machine is connected to printers and to share them.

You will be warned about the need to check the firewall if it is active.

Configure the client

If you have configured the gateway machine with DHCP, you only need to specify in the network configuration tool that you get an address automatically (using DHCP). The parameters will be obtained when connecting to the network. This method is valid whatever operating system the client is using.

If you must manually specify the network parameters, you must in particular specify the gateway by entering the IP-address of the machine acting as the gateway.

Stop connection sharing

If you want to stop sharing the connection on the Mageia computer, launch the tool. It will offer to reconfigure the connection or to stop the sharing.



[23] You can start this tool from the command line, by typing drakgw as root.


CC BY-SA 3.0
Uploaded on 22/10/2016