[techtalk] Linux and routers

[Kath]

> Hang on... if this person can't install a tarball, how on earth do you
> expect him/her to configure routing properly?!?! Obviously individuals
> differ, but I'd have thought routing was a great deal more complex
> than installing a tarball...

Here is the issue:

We have a school web server with an external and internal network card.  For
some reason, noone inside the district can access the web server when using
straight NAT, but can when using our aging proxy server.

Now, if you set the default gateway on any machine in the high school to
10.75.1.4, which is the NAT machine, instead of what the DHCP tells you is
10.75.1.1 (10.75.1.1 is the router), everything works: internal and
external.  However, the grumpy Systems Administrator for the district
refuses to change any DHCP server.  He insists that there is no fault there
and that it is something with the web server.

Now, to get to the middle school and elementaries, you have to go through a
router, because there is a T1 to each building from the main distribution
point in the high school.  Now my question is, should the default gateway at
the elementary/middle schools be the Cisco router for that building (say
10.75.7.1) or should it be the master NAT machine?  Each building has its
own DHCP server, btw, so it is no problem changing it at just one building.

Now the fellow student I am working with (the one who wouldn't know how to
compile a program) keeps insisting that the problem is in the routes on the
Linux box and continues to fool around with them, occasionally breaking them
and then sometimes asking me to fix it, which rather annoys me on the
principle of the thing.  Oi vey :|  I've just about given up.

Anyway, any ideas on what could be causing this?  I could provide more info
if I had specific questions...

More info:

Everytime you plug in www.nbsd.org to a traceroute inside the district, it
gives you the IP of the external card.  The traceroute reveals that it is
dying at/after the 10.75.1.1 router.

Now my one hope is that the former consultant to the district, Robert, can
talk some sense into my sysadmin as he is the only one who Gabriel (my
sysadmin) will listen to.

- Kath the Exasperated



----- Original Message -----
From: "James A. Sutherland" <jas88 at cam.ac.uk>
To: "Kath" <ranger at optonline.net>
Cc: <techtalk at linuxchix.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 2:44 PM
Subject: Re: [techtalk] Linux and routers


> On Tue, 03 Apr 2001 14:32:53 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >To my knowledge, the machine does not have any routing protocols on it.
>
> It certainly shouldn't be running one at the moment - it's not a
> router. Just install the appropriate daemon, and it will be...
>
> >Still would it share it? (It is Debian 2.2 btw, and if there is no .deb
for
> >it, this kid I'm working with would have no idea how to install it from
> >tarball)
>
> Hang on... if this person can't install a tarball, how on earth do you
> expect him/her to configure routing properly?!?! Obviously individuals
> differ, but I'd have thought routing was a great deal more complex
> than installing a tarball...
>
>
> James.
>