default gateway address

if you have two linux machines hooked with a cross over cable between the
network cards or use a hub , and use manual ip address settings, do you need
a default gateway address? The machines will be their own local network.

thudd wrote:

> if you have two linux machines hooked with a cross over cable between the
> network cards or use a hub , and use manual ip address settings, do you
> need a default gateway address? The machines will be their own local
> network.

You need GW address only if you want to communicatw with different network
in example Internet. If you have no connection to Internet or WAN networks
ayou do not need GW address.

Thanks,
Fibre Optic

Hello thudd,

thudd wrote:

> if you have two linux machines hooked with a cross over cable between the
> network cards or use a hub , and use manual ip address settings, do you
> need a default gateway address? The machines will be their own local
> network.

The default gateway specifies where to route traffic to unknown addresses,
not being specified explicitly in your routing table.

Given you have already defined your network, e.g.

172.16.0.1 ========x======== 172.16.0.2

If you already have defined your routing for 172.16.0.0/24 on both machines,
you don't need a default route as long as you don't want to connect to
machines with IP's other than 172.16.0.*, e.g. the internet.

You need to define routing, because even a standalone machine, without a
physical NIC installed, defines its own virtual local network 127.0.0.0/24
with a virtual NIC called "lo" as 127.0.0.1 to work properly as a
networking OS, even when being isolated.

HTH
Torsten


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