Get a laplink cable. Make sure both computer have a kernel with lpt driver support.
$ dmesg | grep lp lpt0 at 0x378-0x37f irq 7 on isa lpt0: Interrupt-driven port lp0: TCP/IP capable interface
Plug in the laplink cable into the parallel interface.
Configure the network interface parameters for lp0 on both sites as root. For example, if you want connect the host max with moritz
max <-----> moritz IP Address 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2
on max start
# ifconfig lp0 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2
on moritz start
# ifconfig lp0 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.1
Thats all! Please read also the manpages lp(4) and lpt(4).
You should also add the hosts to /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.my.domain localhost 10.0.0.1 max.my.domain max 10.0.0.2 moritz.my.domain moritz
To check if it works do:
on max:
$ ifconfig lp0 lp0: flags=8851<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 inet 10.0.0.1 --> 10.0.0.2 netmask 0xff000000
$ netstat -r Routing tables Internet: Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire moritz max UH 4 127592 lp0
$ ping -c 4 moritz PING moritz (10.0.0.2): 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=2.774 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=2.530 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=2.556 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=2.714 ms --- moritz ping statistics --- 4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 2.530/2.643/2.774/0.103 ms