Connecting two Ubuntu 9.10 computers over Firewire(IEEE1394):networking over firewire

On computer #1:

1. Enable the eth1394 module blacklisted in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:
   

   sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

   and put # before "blacklist eth1394" to comment the blacklisted module (so that it can be loaded at boot).
2. Load the eth1394 driver:
   

   sudo modprobe eth1394

   You can see whether the module is running:
   

   lsmod | grep eth1394

3. See the list of network interfaces:
   

   sudo ifconfig -a

4. Assign an IP to the firewire interface (for me it's eth2):
   

   sudo ifconfig eth2 192.168.200.1 up

Repeat the above mentioned steps on computer #2:

1. sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

   and put # before "blacklist eth1394"
2. Load the eth1394 driver:
   

   sudo modprobe eth1394

3. See the list of network interfaces:
   

   sudo ifconfig -a

4. Assign an IP to the firewire interface (for me it's eth8):
   

   sudo ifconfig eth8 192.168.200.2 up

Please note that the first computer uses IP address 192.168.200.1 while the second one uses IP address 192.168.200.2.

After that you should be able to transfer files between your computers with samba, FTP, SSH, NFS, ...

"ip addr show" can help you to select the proper networking interface.

ip addr show eth2

show the following result on my computer #1

4: eth2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UNKNOWN qlen 1000
    link/ieee1394 00:90:27:00:01:b3:ae:dc brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.200.1/24 brd 192.168.200.255 scope global eth2

You can see that it is the IEEE1394 interface

Ping your computers to make sure everything is working properly:

Use

ping -c 2 192.168.200.2

from computer #1 and

ping -c 2 192.168.200.1

from computer #2.

Example: Pinging 192.168.200.2 from computer #1:

ping -c 2 192.168.200.2
PING 192.168.200.2 (192.168.200.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.200.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.183 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.200.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.177 ms

--- 192.168.200.2 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.177/0.180/0.183/0.003 ms