[CS-FSLUG] My turn for being clueless

[Frank Bax]

At 01:27 PM 12/7/04, Ed Hurst wrote:
>I run FreeBSD 5.3 and connect via dialup. Most of you won't be able to
>help with peculiarities of FreeBSD, but I still need a general framework
>of "what must happen" for this to work.
>
>I am connecting my wife's (shudder) XP box to the switch, so that I can
>serve PPP to her. Then I can remove the internal modem which is causing
>crashes and other problems. Her ethernet connection is built on the
>board.

I think you need two basic components:
1) Configure FreeBSD as a router so that WinXP can access internet through it.
2) Decide how to satisfy WinXP requirements to access internet via network 
adapter.

I don't know anything about (1), but have some experience with (2).  My 
experience with (2) is limited to off-the-shelf routers and hi-speed 
connections, not dialup and Linux/BSD routers, but same principles apply.

I would attempt to install a DHCP server on the FreeBSD system.  Two reasons:
1) The default install on WinXP for network cards is to expect a DHCP server.
2) DHCP server on FreeBSD will not only give the WinXP system an ip 
address, it should also provide ip addresses for dns servers so WinXP can 
"seamlessly" access the internet.

If you choose to manually configure WinXP, then it is a bit more 
complicated on the WinXP side:
1) specify (as you said) a static ip address for WinXP system.
2) specify the gateway (ip address of FreeBSD system) and subnet mask 
(255.255.255.0)
3) specify dns servers - this is tricky.  When the FreeBSD (or any system) 
connects via dialup, the dhcp server on other side of connection provides 
this information.  It is possible to find out what these ip addresses are, 
but if your isp changes them, then your wife's machine will stop working 
and you must go through the process again to find out what the dns servers 
are.  Not a likely event or even a time consuming process, but when her 
system stops working for no apparent reason, you might not remember that 
this is a possible source of problem.

Frank