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eth0 - ra0 network bridge?
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Author:  gezz [ Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:09 am ]
Post subject:  eth0 - ra0 network bridge?
I have a combined frontend/backend system running well using R5D1 on a nforce2 based Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard. This mobo has two onboard ethernet ports, but due to the location of the box I am instead using a Belkin F5D7000 wireless card with the rt2500 drivers that come with R5D1.

I got a new Xbox 360 for Christmas, and so am trying to decide the best way to get it connected to the net.

I was wondering if it would be possible to connect this into one of the spare network ports and somehow use the box's wireless connection to connect to the internet.

Having searched around a bit I think I need to set up some kind of bridge, possibly using the bridge-utils package, but I've not really found a step by step guide, or even worked out for sure if this is possible.

Is this the correct thing to be trying? Has anyone had any success with this?
It seems like this might save me having to buy the wireless adapter for the Xbox, but I'd like some thoughts before I try this and break my working system! :)

I am not sure if this is important, but my myth box is being the dhcp server for my network so that my media MVP boots successfully, and this would have to continue to be the case.

Many thanks for any help you can offer.
Author:  WattoToydarian [ Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:03 pm ]
Post subject: 
This might be possible. I once thought about trying this on my clarkconnect server. Here is the thread I had for it:
http://www.clarkconnect.com/forums/show ... 9e117b5bb9
A long how-to is here http://linux-net.osdl.org/index.php/Bridge
Good luck.
Author:  gezz [ Fri Dec 29, 2006 6:56 am ]
Post subject: 
Thanks for the info.

I tried to follow that how to, but didnt really have much success.

I think I managed to actually create the bridge containing the two interfaces (ra0 and eth0) but when this was done I no longer seemed able to access the network.
Just trying to ping the router failed with 'destination host unreachable' error messages.

I don't really know how to event try and fix this! I've read stuff about using route and iptables, but this is way beyond my basic linux knowledge! :)

Also the comment in that how to about it might not work with wireless cards is not a good sign!

I would love to get this working, so if anyone already has that would be good to know, but I'm thinking at this point that I'll just have to spend the £60 on the wireless adapter for the 360. :(
Author:  onesojourner [ Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
I messed with this a while back, never got it to work running ubuntu. sharing an internet connection is one area windows just does better, hopefully some one will figure out an easy way to do it soon though.
Author:  ethernut [ Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:09 pm ]
Post subject: 
Man I'd go to Walmart and buy a Linksys WRT54G for 50 bucks and save yourself days of time. The router can do DHCP and Wireless (if you like) and just about any other thing you'd ever want a router to do if you load the linux based DD-WRT firmware..

http://www.dd-wrt.com/
Author:  Atamido [ Fri Dec 29, 2006 1:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
Go buy a wireless Ethernet converter. Seriously. It connects wirelessly to your access point like any another device, and provides 4 100Mbps Ethernet ports on the same subnet as the rest of your network. I picked up this one from Buffalo Technology and haven't had to touch it since configuring it almost a year ago. ($50 from Newegg) A bunch of different companies make them, so you have options.
Author:  WattoToydarian [ Fri Dec 29, 2006 2:57 pm ]
Post subject: 
According to what I learned on the clarkconnect forum, when you turn a nic in linux to a bridge, it acts no different than a switch (no layer 3 or above logic).

Bridged ports have no IP address, they just connect to devices and forward their packets to the proper port.

You will have to have another nic (non-bridged) to connect to your bridged nics and then I don't know how to get the wifi involved because I don't think you cant configure or talk to a bridged nic.

Look at mtmsol's post on the clarkconnect thread I posted here.

You might be better off getting a cheap wifi router and bridging it with your other one or using an old windows xp machine you dont use anymore and bridging your wireless card with a nic if you get where I'm coming from.
Author:  gezz [ Sat Dec 30, 2006 2:10 pm ]
Post subject: 
Thanks for the suggestions guys.

I originally thought about doing this, because I saw a mate do something very similar with an XP box and it only took a couple of mins to set up, so I thought it would be a good way to save some money!

I guess it's not quite that simple in linux! :)

That Buffalo converter looks interesting, I hadn't seen one before with a 4 port switch built in. This would also let me switch my myth box back to using a wired connection which would be a plus. (The rt2500 drivers in R5D1 are a massive improvement over using ndiswrapper, but still have the ocassional problem!)

You seem to be able to get this delivered from dabs for about £50 (just under $100, boy do we get ripped off over here :) ), so I think I may well just go for that.

Thanks again for your help.
Author:  turpie [ Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
I would think that you'd be able to use IP forwarding to accomplish this without mucking around with bridging. The instructions should be easier to find too as it is a more common task than bridging.
Author:  gezz [ Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:32 am ]
Post subject: 
Maybe I should have looked into IP forwarding.

I've already bought the hardware converter now though and it seems to be working fine! :)

Thanks for the hint though, I will probably look into it anyway just for future reference
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