[lug] Another local network question

[David]

I am trying to get two Linux boxes to talk to each other.  Something
is wrong with my configuration, and I think it must be a permissions /
security issue.  Help will be appreciated.

The machines are hooked together with a cross-over cable plugged into
network cards.  I have used ifconfig and route, which I think I
understand.  I can ping each machine from itself and from the other
machine.  I even disconnected the cable, tried to ping, and
re-connected as a test.  It all went as you might expect.

The OSes are RedHat 7.0 and RedHat 7.1, both loaded from KRUD discs.

I am unable to use any software to connect between the machines.  I
have tried rsh, ftp and ssh from 7.1 to 7.0 (ssh is not immediately
available on 7.0).  In all cases the message, after a pause of several
seconds, is some variant of "Connection Refused".

I tried rsh on one machine to itself, "Connection refused".  Similarly
I tried ssh; this was more interesting, "The authenticity of host
... cannot be established.  RA key fingerprint is  ...  Are you sure
you want to continue ..."

I am doing all of this stuff as root.  I have a .rhosts file in each
root directory naming the other machine and root.  I have /etc/hosts
files with appropriate information.

I do not yet understand ipchains and iptables.  Could these be
stopping me?  If so, they are working very well, I might say.  But why
are they not stopping me pinging?  At this point installed security is
all I can think of to look at.  If anyone can get me going I shall be
very grateful; I am on a schedule that is getting painful.  I am more
than willing to read HOWTOs, etc.  The problem is that there are so
many HOWTOs, and, since I do not know where the problem is, I do not
know which one to read.

dajo