in my workgroup lan with a mix of w2k and xp workstations, when I ping to Fedora 8 (Linux) server it says "Request timed out". but this Fedora server is well configured to the network it can can ping this xp machine (xxx.xxx.xxx.2) and even access the internet. but this xp maching xxx.xxx.xxx.2 and other workstations cannot ping this Fedora server xxx.xxx.xxx.1

1. what could be the problem please?
2. Firewall rules on the Fedora server perhaps? Telling it not to respond to certain ICMP packets?

   The iptables tool is used to set and examine firewall rules.

3. The person who answered your question before is right, but I'd like to add to it if I may. By default, Fedora turns on security when installing the operating system. Part of this security regime includes iptables as well as protection for your filesystem/kernel from potential hacks. If you want to verify what your Fedora server's iptables are blocking/not blocking, type iptables –list at the command prompt. If it's a long list, pipe the command to less, like this:
   iptables –list | less
   If your choice is to start from scratch, you can use the flush command with iptables like this:
   iptables –F
   This will get rid of your rules. If you do this, it might be wise to make a backup of your iptables config file first to troubleshoot what might be wrong. If you want to verify what all Fedora is "listening to" on the network, you might try a utility called Angry IP Scanner for Windows or nmap for linux. Angry IP Scanner can be found here:
   http://www.angryziber.com/ipscan/…
   nmap can be found here:
   http://insecure.org/nmap/download.html…

   Since you mentioned you're running Fedora (not sure which version is 8 is not yet released, but you can check which version by typing "cat /etc/issue"), newer versions (I believe it started with 5) include a nice repository for software and you can use yum to automatically install the program/utility like so:
   yum install nmap
   You'll need to be root to do this.

   Hope this helps,
   John aka tau_zeppelin

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