I'm a little frustrated at the moment & I need to vent some, so WHY IS LINUX NETWORKING SO !#@$&*(* COMPLICATED???

At home, I have a desktop and a laptop computer. They are both connected to a Netgear RP-614 (wired) router. Everything works fine...until I try to make them talk to each other.

(Both are running Ubuntu 7.04, BTW, and I multi-boot my desktop to Windows XP Professional, for work purposes...)

From my desktop (in Ubuntu), I can SSH into my laptop. From my laptop, I get an error regarding port 22 if I try to go the other way. I've compared ~/.ssh, /etc/ssh and everything looks like it should work. I've also looked at /etc/hosts on both and can find no reason why it shouldn't work.

OK, fine - I'll use Samba. However, that doesn't work, either. After installing Samba on both computers (server & client), I still can't make them communicate. However, when I boot the desktop in to Windows and share a folder, I can connect from the laptop with no problem.

What am I missing?

And I'm about to go out for lunch - before I throw one or the other computer through the patio window...<g>

a few -obvious- things i would check :

- do you have the ssh server installed and running on both computers ?
- did you set up the firewalls on both computers to allow inbound connections on port 22 ?
- try connecting using IP instead of hostname, you can get your ip with ifconfig in linux
- check the settings of the firewall on your router ...

[quote=c.dric;84879]a few -obvious- things i would check :

- do you have the ssh server installed and running on both computers ?
Yes, on both systems
- did you set up the firewalls on both computers to allow inbound connections on port 22 ?
I wasn't aware that Ubuntu blocked anything by default - I've not set up anything...
- try connecting using IP instead of hostname, you can get your ip with ifconfig in linux
Been there, done that...
- check the settings of the firewall on your router .../QUOTE]
In previous incarnations, both systems talked happily - and let's not forget the Windows experience

Ubuntu by default doesn't have a "firewall" so to speak, so if you didn't add one you should be ok on that note. Ok, you said you checked the hosts.deny file in /etc. As a step to see if it helps I would suggest adding the other computers IP to hosts.allow. Just do it like below:
also, you should check iptables, which is something that can be setup and used like a firewall. Execute the following command in the Terminal:
if you see your other computer's IP there it means it is probably being blocked.

i may be wrong but i think ubuntu feisty has iptables started up by default.
you can use firestarter if you need a gui to set it up.

go in the policy tab then choose inbound traffic policy in the dropdown menu and add a rule for port 22.

That is correct.

For the OP, here is a good tutorial on Ubuntu Linux specifically, and Linux in general. This particular page gives you an overview of iptables and Firestarter.

Security on Ubuntu

The author of the site is Aysiu, who is valued member of the Ubuntu staff.

i guess you are right, it does have iptables but, unless i am mistaken, it isn't setup by default to do anything

Feisty has no open ports by default, if you want to open them you'll have to do it manually.

this will open port 22 for incoming tcp connections

to the OP try to read the manpage of iptables.

creates a *.txt with the manual on your desktop