[l008com]

So I was just reading about this neat feature and I think it might be for me. Here's my situation. Right now my server is a B&W G3. I also have a second B&W G3 that I use as network storage. My main computer is a dual G4 machine. I have other machines on my network as well. Now my server acts as my router, with a second ethernet card. That 2nd ethernet goes into a switch which goes to all my Macs. Now that part needs to stay, but I was thinking I could set up another network interface on the firewire, and plug my server into my network storage mac with one firewire cable, and plug my G4 into my network storage mac with another one. Sorta chain the two together. I assume that would work ok? Also what lengths can firewire cables be. I though I remembered reading that firewire's max is 400 MBits, but if the cables are long, the speed steps down, similar to what wireless does when the range increases. I need better routing software, but thats my own problem, I really wanna know about the hardware aspect of this. How long can my firewire cables be? And can I use the chain technique or would I need a firewire hub? And if I chained them, I wouldn't have to set up the 'middle' machine to share its internet would I? Being chained, would they both see the server directly? Its late, i'm tired, so i may not have made sense, but uhmm lemme know if you have any insight. THanks.

[furi]

Originally posted by l008com:
I though I remembered reading that firewire's max is 400 MBits, but if the cables are long, the speed steps down, similar to what wireless does when the range increases.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you won't even reach this maximum since your IDE bus is limited to 100Mb/s.

And can I use the chain technique or would I need a firewire hub? And if I chained them, I wouldn't have to set up the 'middle' machine to share its internet would I? Being chained, would they both see the server directly? Its late, i'm tired, so i may not have made sense, but uhmm lemme know if you have any insight. THanks.

You could simply chain them by setting up an network bridge on the firewire ports that will be involved in this setup, set up an ip of the bridge on each computer and have one of the computers have ICS from the internet to the firewire bridge. The only problem is, you'd have to recompile the Darwin kernel. I've done such a setup using Linux.

[l008com]

Originally posted by furi:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you won't even reach this maximum since your IDE bus is limited to 100Mb/s.

100MB/sec = 800MBits/sec

Originally posted by furi:
You could simply chain them by setting up an network bridge on the firewire ports that will be involved in this setup, set up an ip of the bridge on each computer and have one of the computers have ICS from the internet to the firewire bridge. The only problem is, you'd have to recompile the Darwin kernel. I've done such a setup using Linux.

recompiling the kernel? Are you new to Macs? I'm pretty sure (but not 100%) that all I have to do is plug them in and turn on Firewire as a network interface.

[Lenio]

Try going to www.1394ta.org it will have all the answers you need. If you are interested in waiting a few months, you will be able to network 1394 throughout your home over Cat5e. Let me know if you want more info on that...

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Lenio:
Try going to www.1394ta.org it will have all the answers you need. If you are interested in waiting a few months, you will be able to network 1394 throughout your home over Cat5e. Let me know if you want more info on that...

I'd be interested in hearing more about this either through a weblink or if you have any info you can email to me (dalex at mac dot com).

Thanks

DAlex

[amonitzer]

Hi,

all FireWire nodes automatically act as a repeater (even when they're not running, the controller is using the power provided by the FireWire connection in this case), so you don't need any extra devices, just two cables (there's a spec'd maximum length, I can't remember it offhand, though).

I've got a setup here that's very similar to the one you're planning. It works pretty well, the only thing you have to do is to add the FireWire connection to TCP/IP networking, and enable the internet connection sharing available in the system preferences (no need to recompile anything).

However, there's a downside (and that's the reason I'm not using this connection right now): If you plug in any external FireWire disk (like an iPod), you don't know where it'll appear. Most of the time my iPod got mounted on my headless server, I got pretty fed up with that one (had to ssh into it and use diskutil -e).

[l008com]

Originally posted by amonitzer:
Hi,

all FireWire nodes automatically act as a repeater (even when they're not running, the controller is using the power provided by the FireWire connection in this case), so you don't need any extra devices, just two cables (there's a spec'd maximum length, I can't remember it offhand, though).

I've got a setup here that's very similar to the one you're planning. It works pretty well, the only thing you have to do is to add the FireWire connection to TCP/IP networking, and enable the internet connection sharing available in the system preferences (no need to recompile anything).

However, there's a downside (and that's the reason I'm not using this connection right now): If you plug in any external FireWire disk (like an iPod), you don't know where it'll appear. Most of the time my iPod got mounted on my headless server, I got pretty fed up with that one (had to ssh into it and use diskutil -e).

You only have to enable internet sharing in one machine right? The "beginning" of the chain? The middle one doesn't need sharing turned on does it, to continue the 'flo' of net access to the end machine? Also, were you using 10.2.X or 10.3? My only firewire device is my iPod currently, and I do need it to work right. I'll definitely give this a try, as i regularly transfer large amounts of small files, and small amounts of very large files around between these 3 particular machines.