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skyman · Jan 21, 2003, 05:56 PM

A friend of mine has a DLS modem connected to a router and the router is connected to his computer.

He wants to add antoher computer to his home and network the two computers (file sharing etc). Can he use the router to network the two computers or does he need an ethernet HUB???

superlarry · Jan 21, 2003, 06:19 PM

yeah, that's what the router's for.
there should be more than 2 jacks. one's for the modem, his computer's in one, and you should be able to plug another one into a free port.

ickettpe · Jan 21, 2003, 08:06 PM

unless your friend managed to buy one with just one net port.... heh

skyman · Jan 21, 2003, 08:13 PM

Originally posted by superlarry:
yeah, that's what the router's for.
there should be more than 2 jacks. one's for the modem, his computer's in one, and you should be able to plug another one into a free port.

Just out of curiosity, what is the difference between a router and an Ethernet hub?

skyman · Jan 21, 2003, 08:15 PM

Originally posted by ickettpe:
unless your friend managed to buy one with just one net port.... heh

The router has 5 ports.

So, it is safe to assume that once both computers are plugged into the router he will have a LAN and can start file sharing?

Correct?

ghporter · Jan 21, 2003, 08:19 PM

Originally posted by skyman:
Just out of curiosity, what is the difference between a router and an Ethernet hub?

A hub is basically a passive device-it connects the transmit pair on each jack to the receive pair on all the others. It would let you share a broadband connection, but it would seem very slow and laggy. A router (actually the LAN side of the gateway router you describe is a switch) is an active device that examines each data packet and sends it to the correct destination port. Much faster. If you use this sort of device to share a broadband connection, every computer seems to have the whole (or mostly the whole) bandwidth because it's shared packet by packet. A switch seems much, much faster than a hub.

In common usage, there is much confusion between what is a hub, a switch and a router. I always try to be precise, because being slack in terminology can confuse a lot of people, me included!

ickettpe · Jan 21, 2003, 08:22 PM

the computers attached to the router will be able to communicate with the WAN (like the internet if the router is connected to the internet) and each other, so yes, filesharing will work just fine. A hub is a multi-port repeater. It basicly just takes any signal it receives in any port and sends it out all of it's other ports. A router that has multiple ports is really a router with a built in switch. A switch is simmilar to a hub, except that it makes decisions as to where the packets go, based on which address is supposed to recieve the data. The router part of the "router" is the part that allows you to connect to the internet, it is a bridge between different types of networks (different protocols for your LAN and the connection to the outside).

From a home lan perspective, a switch and a hub do the same thing, but the switch is more expensive. With only 5 computers, there is no reason to need the extra features of a switch.

ickettpe · Jan 21, 2003, 08:28 PM

hmm.. it may be "gateway" and not "bridge" in my previous post... i can never keep those two straight.

ghporter · Jan 22, 2003, 10:49 AM

Originally posted by ickettpe:
hmm.. it may be "gateway" and not "bridge" in my previous post... i can never keep those two straight.

Actually in a manner of speaking, "gateway" is what a gateway router does, and "bridge" (as in bridging between two networks) is how it does it. Many such devices serve as the gateway to the Internet for the LAN, and even provide DNS server addresses to the LAN clients(some even act as a DNS server for the LAN).