Alec wrote:
How does one connect two computers to the internet throught one ethernet
socket? Does one of them have to have two ethernet cards and run special
software?
Technically, one socket would not do the job. But to your querstion:
One computer acts as a gateway. One interface is connected with the
internet (eg. ethernet adaptor for xDSL, modem, ISDN adaptor etc.). A
second adapter is used to bridge the internal network/te second
computer with the internet.
The first one (gateway) therefore an ethernet card (will be the
"second" one if using xDSL). You can use NAT (network address
translation) to let the other computer send and receive data to/from
the internet through the gateway.
You do not need external/additional software to do this, just use
iptables of the 2.4 kernel series.
The gateway will establish a connection like a single workstation
while setting up an additional script in /etc/init.d/ will activate
NAT ("ipforward" or "ipmasquerading") and additional firewall rules.
Thus, a gateway's client will send a request to the gateway. That
repackages this request and sends it out in "his name" (IP). On
receive, it knows from which client the request came and sends the
results back.
Hope thi helped,
Timo
