Using Microsoft Internet Sharing on Heterogenous Networks?

spoonboy42 asks: "A friend of mine wants to try running an Apache server on Linux at his home, and he's asked me to configure it for him. He uses Windows 98's Internet Connection Sharing to allow the computers on his network (all Windows 9X clients) to share access to his cable modem. I told him to install a Linux or BSD proxy server, but he doesn't want to alter his network just yet. Ordinarily I would think it impossible to use ICS under Linux, but when I tried a QNX demo disk in one of his machines, it autodetected all settings and was able to use the Internet. Does anyone know a way to make Linux do the same thing?" Assuming that this is possible (I still have my doubts), what steps must be taken to get non-Microsoft clients working with Microsoft Internet Sharing?

Gateway Server

[Crewd]

IIRC...the ICS in Win98 SE just sets up a gateway. all you need to do is configure your linux box to point to the Win98 box as its default gateway. Make sure you fill in the nameserver information of the internet provider and you should be working.

Re:Gateway Server

[titus-g]

Yup, as the guy sez, no problems at all running linux boxes with a win ICS gateway, It's what I have here most of the time, and pretty much all I did was set up the DNS server on the Linux box to tap into my ISP's servers and it went, simple as that.

Windows can be quite a good gateway, it doesn't actually run any services unless you install them ('cept SMB of cos, well ok and ping, and some others, but)...

The thing to get over is that ICS isn't a client server thing that you can only access if you have the right software on the box on the inside (like wingate can be). Umm and contrary to popular opinion quite a lot of MS software does work, and quite well, anyway as my gran says, 2 heads are better than one, even if one is a sheep's.

Re:Gateway Server

[trekman47]

if you plan on running any sort of server on the network behind the WIn98 box, you'll need to download a program like ICS configurator to map the ports (21, 23, etc.) to the IP address of the machine running the server. The URL of the program slips my mind, but I know it's out there.

Check out the win98 cd

[crazy_clyde]

ICS starts a DHCP server and a DNS server on the interface you designate as the HOME side of your connection and assigns the ip address for that interface to be 192.168.0.1 by default. So as long as your internal ip addresses all either fall into the same net as the HOME interface or they use dhcp, it doesn't matter what operating system you're running.

Check the \tools\mtsutil\ics directory on the win982nd CD. It includes some inf files for disabling and re-enabling the servers based on your needs.

A bit on ICS

[Tsian]

Well, at least for Win2k, it sets up ICS as a DHCP server, but you can also set up manually. I suspect 98 is the same thing in that it does do DHCP but can also be configured manually, just setting the server to be the gateway and dns

on another note, i've found that winroute is an excellent ICS program.
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Coyote Linux as the router/firewall

[Mark F. Komarinski]

Last weekend I set my (computer literate, but not Linux-literate) brother up with Coyote Linux [coyotelinux.com] which is based off the Linux Router Project [linuxrouter.org]. Single-floppy distro with DHCP server and some other goodies (VPN, no services running, etc). If you're a Linux user, it's free of charge, but you can purchase the full edition which contains a Windows setup tool which runs...you figured that out.

For people who don't know how Linux can help them, this is a great way to show them.

What do you have to do?

[PhunkySchtuff]

to get non Windows clients to use internet connection sharing? nothing special at all simply set them up to use DHCP and off you go the Windows machine sets itself up as a DHCP server and as the gateway on the LAN and as an added bonus any machine going through the Internet Connection Sharing machine is unable to be accessed from the internet at large. all you need is some good firewall software on the computer that is actually dialing up to the internet... -- kai