[sanity assassin]

Hey,

I'm wanting to get 3 machines connected to my adsl connection, at the moment I have a d-link ethernet adsl modem which is connected to my mac with pppoe. So, in order to share this connection, do I all I have to get is somethign like a 5-port router, and I'll be abel to share the connection?

Any help appreciated.

[John Strung]

Yes. Make sure what you get is a ROUTER and not HUB or SWITCH.

I would recommend the 4 port LinkSys BEFSR-41 which you should be able to get from about $50.

When you hook it up, make sure you turn off PPPoE on your computer. You connect to the router using DHCP. The router has PPPoE software built in which connects to your modem. You have to put the PPPoE username and password into the router. On most routers you do this using your web browser. On the LinkSys, for instance, logging in to http://192.168.1.1 will connect you to the router.

[sanity assassin]

Originally posted by John Strung:
Yes. Make sure what you get is a ROUTER and not HUB or SWITCH.

I would recommend the 4 port LinkSys BEFSR-41 which you should be able to get from about $50.

When you hook it up, make sure you turn off PPPoE on your computer. You connect to the router using DHCP. The router has PPPoE software built in which connects to your modem. You have to put the PPPoE username and password into the router. On most routers you do this using your web browser. On the LinkSys, for instance, logging in to http://192.168.1.1 will connect you to the router.

Brilliant, thanks for the help. One question, how will the computers that I plug into the router see the adsl modem? Do i need to set up anything for that?

[John Strung]

All the computers will plug into the router. Only the router plugs into the ADSL modem.

If you set the TCP/IP control panels to all computer to Connect using Ethernet and Configure using DHCP, that you should be all you have to do, other than putting the username and password into the router and configuring it for PPPoE.

The computers then communicate with the router which "routes" the communications to and from the modem.

In other words, if computer A asks for the Google web page, the URL request is sent by the router to the modem. When the Google web page comes back from Google via the modem, the router knows the request is intended for computer A and does not send it to B or C. This all works transparently.

[sanity assassin]

Originally posted by John Strung:
All the computers will plug into the router. Only the router plugs into the ADSL modem.

If you set the TCP/IP control panels to all computer to Connect using Ethernet and Configure using DHCP, that you should be all you have to do, other than putting the username and password into the router and configuring it for PPPoE.

The computers then communicate with the router which "routes" the communications to and from the modem.

In other words, if computer A asks for the Google web page, the URL request is sent by the router to the modem. When the Google web page comes back from Google via the modem, the router knows the request is intended for computer A and does not send it to B or C. This all works transparently.

Aaah, God, cheers for that, that has solved a long running daft issue of networking in my head there.

Ta muchly.

[sanity assassin]

Hi John,

Thanks a lot for all the help, I went out and got a 4 port router, and got all the computers, and modem working. Everything is fine, and I'm now setting up some of the features on the router itself. I've got a few questions which I'd appreciate so much if you could help me out with.

The router has NAT, and a firewall and I'm wanting to use the firewall but have read about things like port forwarding so that my web server, ftp, and other things can be accessed from my machine. I went into the router configuration tools, and it gave me these examples from the help file.
Under NAT, it game me these two options to configure, "Special Application", and "VirtualServer"
The question is, which one do I go with to forward relevant ports and such like if I wanted to say, forward port 80 for the webs server?

Any help greatly appreciated.


Here;s what the help manual says

"
Virtual Server
If you configure the Broadband Router as a virtual server, remote users accessing services such as Web or FTP at your local site via public IP addresses can be automatically redirected to local servers configured with private IP address. In other words, depending on the requested service (TCP/UDP port number), the Broadband Router redirects the external service request to the appropriate server.

Example:




ID
Private IP
Private Port
Type
Public Port
Comment

1
192.168.2.20
80
TCP
200
Web Server

2
192.168.2.12
21
TCP
333
FTP Server

3
192.168.2.28
23
TCP
455
Telnet Server

top Special Application
Some applications require multiple connections, such as Internet gaming, video conferencing, Internet telephony and others. These applications cannot work when Network Address Translation (NAT) is enabled. If you need to run applications that require multiple connections,-specify the port normally associated with an application in the "Trigger Port" field,select the protocol type as TCP or UDP, then enter the public ports associated with the trigger port to open them for inbound traffic.

Example:




ID
Trigger Port
Trigger Type
Public Port
Public Type
Comment

1
28800
UDP
2300-2400,
47624
UDP
MSN Game Zone

2
28800
UDP
2300-2400,
47624
TCP
MSN Game Zone

3
6112
UDP
6112
UDP
Battle.net

[John Strung]

The feature you want is what your router manufacturer calls "virtual server". This is usually referred to as "port forwarding" or "port mapping". What your router manufacturer refers to as "special applications" is usually called "trigger port mapping".

Have a look at some of the "how-to's" found here:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/howto/

particularly the one called "Setting up a Server", but see also "setting up a web site" and "Getting applications to work through a firewall".

[sanity assassin]

Originally posted by John Strung:
The feature you want is what your router manufacturer calls "virtual server". This is usually referred to as "port forwarding" or "port mapping". What your router manufacturer refers to as "special applications" is usually called "trigger port mapping".

Have a look at some of the "how-to's" found here:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/howto/

particularly the one called "Setting up a Server", but see also "setting up a web site" and "Getting applications to work through a firewall".

Excellent, thanks a ton.