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rwi@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au (Ross Irvine) writes:
?Hi All,
?	I have a BIG question here. At work I have 8 offices connected to 
?a central centre via 33.6k dialup modems (these modems are basically 
?setup to send file, there is no actual netware/network connection between 
?these, just basically zmodeming updated files). All offices are running a 
?novell 
?network (no TCP/IP install yet) same with the central server. Note there 
?is currently NO connection at all between these servers.
?
?What I want to do, is to get an IP address for the central centre and 
?then allow all users access to the internet.
?
?I was thinking of have the ip address on a linux server in the central 
?system with maybe a linux server at each office accessing the main linux 
?server.
?
?So if someone on a PC in an office wants access to the internet the route 
?would look like this :
?
?PC -> Office Linux Server -> Modem at office ----- Modem at central 
?centre ->Linux Server at central office -> Modem (or ISDN) to 
?internet service provider.
?
?Now, what I would like to know is, Is this at all possible on such a 
?large scale. 
?
?I'm not new to linux and have been using redhat for a few years now, and 
?I'm pretty up to date in novell too (btw these are 3.12 servers..)
?
?I've got as far as knowning that I'll need TCP/IP on the workstations but 
?I can't assign them an IP address as I only have 1. And getting an IP 
?address for each workstation would be too much hassle (read : cost)

Technically you can do it, though all these offices may overload your modem.
I recommand you get the Linux Network Administrator's Guide, Olaf Kirch, 
O'Reilly & Assoc which describes on some detail how to set up a TCP/IP LAN.
It's also part of the Dr Linux I got from RedHat.

If you configure the machine with the modem as a SOCKS firewall you will be able
to give all machines Internet access while also defending said machines from
hack attack.

If you want a less elaborate setup you can use a Proxy web server on the 
Modem Machine and others can access WWW, ftp etc through this.

I have an article descibing how I did this with OS/2 in my web pages.

Cheers
John Summerfield
Warped & Connected
Perth, Western Australia
OS2 support @ http://www.iinet.net.au/~summer
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