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NDBounce · Mar 30, 2003, 12:36 PM

All my networking experience has been with 802.11b (and maybe some apple talk between 2 macs).

In my house we currently have an 802.11b network run off of a Graphite ABS which 3 computers connect to (ibook and 2 Wintel machines).

My housemate just got his hands on an older Power Mac and wants to connect to the internet through the cable modem.

My guess is that I need to get a router, and then connect the cable modem to the router, and have one connection from the router going to the ABS and the other going to the ethernet on the Power Mac. Before I do this however, I want to confirm that I am correct in my assumption.

Also, in this process I realized some general ignorance I have around networking. Can someone tell me the difference between (or give me good layman definitions of) a Hub, a Router and a switch.

I currently have an ethernet hub but have no clue as to whether or not this would be useful for the network I want to set up.

Any help is appreciated.

Peace,

O
B unce!

ghporter · Mar 30, 2003, 02:26 PM

Your assumptions are correct; you should get a gateway router (also known as a cable/DSL router) to share your cable connection between wired and wireless networks.

A hub is basically a box that connects the transmit signal from one port to all the receive signal lines on all the other ports-this can keep many of the computers on the switch from sending, because only one can send at a time, and they must "listen" for a clear time before they do.

A switch examines the destination address of each packet, and sends it to the appropriate port, greatly increasing the potential throughput of the device-all devices can send at the same time, and nothing gets messed up because each packet gets sent to the correct destination.

A router in small/home office terms, is a small switch with the ability to share a single broadband connection with all the ports on its built-in switch.

John Strung · Mar 30, 2003, 08:45 PM

Connect the cable modem to the router and the router to the ABS. Then set the ABS to Bridge mode and turn off the ABS DHCP server.

ghporter · Mar 31, 2003, 10:39 AM

Originally posted by John Strung:
Connect the cable modem to the router and the router to the ABS. Then set the ABS to Bridge mode and turn off the ABS DHCP server.

Oops. I should have said that in my post, shouldn't I. Anyway, "what he said!"

DimeTech · Apr 5, 2003, 07:07 PM

what do you need to put in as the IP address of the basestation?

aaanorton · Apr 5, 2003, 09:07 PM

Originally posted by DimeTech:
what do you need to put in as the IP address of the basestation?

In this situation, the ABS will get an IP from the router via DHCP. See?

DimeTech · Apr 5, 2003, 09:27 PM

well which one is it? one person says DHCP, one person says no DHCP. I'm trying to do all these things but I don't know what to put for my IP address. It usually gives me one on its own.

aaanorton · Apr 5, 2003, 09:41 PM

Originally posted by DimeTech:
well which one is it? one person says DHCP, one person says no DHCP.

Hmmm. You're misunderstanding what has been posted. You want to disable DHCP serving on the ABS, so that it can receive an IP from the router. As you said, it's getting one on it's own, as it should. You only want one DHCP server on the LAN. Since the router, in this case, is doing this, the ABS should not.