You have more going on here than I can probably cover in email, but I'll take a shot. Your macintosh is grabbing your internet connection. Cable modems are generally configured to allow only a single connection to the internet, subsequent connections will be blocked, unless you have contracted for something special from your provider. You can't communicate between your Mac and your desktop because the addresses that have been assigned to them are on different networks. Your Mac has an address from your provider, which will be a routable address. Your linux box has the 192.x.x.x address that you assigned. Even though they are physically on the same network, they have no way to know that (or communicate with each other) because the addresses tell them they are on different networks. If you want to get both machines setup on the same network behind the cable modem, you will need some type of network sharing device. You can use your Linux box to perform that function, by adding a second ethernet interface and configuring IP Masquerading. If you don't feel that brave, you can purchase a broadband router such as the SMC Barricade (my preference). There are plenty of others out there as well, by Linksys, Dlink, Netgear, ad infinitum. Hope that helps, Bruce Bruce Broecker Network Comm Supervisor The Toro Company >>> np at f-matic.net 12/12/03 02:01PM >>> a call for help to any networking people! i need a little help setting up a local network to connect an OS X powerbook and a linux desktop, using a small 4 port hub. what i'd ideally like to do is to have internet access on my linux computer, but be able to ssh into my OS X laptop to grab files i need. what i've attempted so far is plugging my cable modem into the uplink slot of the hub, and plugging my powerbook and linux box into ports 2 and 3. the powerbook auto-detects the internet connection and runs fine -- my linux box doesn't seem to be able to do this, although it can auto-detect fine when plugged directly into the cable modem. so that's problem number one: how can i get the linux box to detect the internet connection when connected through the hub? the second question is how to get the two computers networked ok. i tried assigning the linux box an internal ip address 192.x.x.x using ifconfig, which works fine. but when i attempt to ssh into the box from my powerbook using that internal ip address, nothing happens. i have ssh enabled on the linux box. when i try to nmap the internal ip address from my powerbook, it shows no open ports, so obviously i'm doing something wrong. sorry if this is a little vague -- i'm a complete novice at networking. if anyone needs more info, i will be happy to provide it. if it helps, i am using a powerbook g3 with OS 10.3.1, and an athlon XP 2000 running debian 2.4.21, with a Hawking 10Base-T 4 Port Hub. thanks for any help! best, nick _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list