StarDestroyer.Net BBS

My friend has asked me for some internet connection help, so i thought I'd ask here seeing as I don't know myself. He wants to run two machines off one wired internet connection, using an ethernet switch if that's possible, and without having to buy a router. He describes it like so...

I tried using an ethernet switch.

But apparently a switch only shares things from pc to pc, like datafile through file transfer it doesn't share internet connection, but the thing is if I plug in the internet into the first port I can send the internet into my pc through the second port.

But it wont send through any other ports.

Any ideas?

Most residential ISPs these days will only grant one IP address lease per household, which means without a router or other NAT (Network Address Translation) device you can only have one computer online at a time. This sounds like it's the case for your friend, so he has one of two options:

1) Buy/build a router. Yes, build; if he's got an old computer lying around doing nothing, he could install something like Monowall and have that serve as a router. (He'd have to buy a second network card for the Monowall box, but those are really cheap these days.)

2) Install ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) if he's got a Windows computer. This is not really a good way to do things and I strongly urge against it if possible.

edit: damn, beaten

What's ICS, and why would you recommend against it?

ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) requires that the computer it runs on be on for other computers to be able to access the Internet. So if you're using your computer and for whatever reason it goes down (whether it's for Windows Updates or the hard drive dies or your pirated version of Princess Fucker 2007 has a virus), so does the internet connection. It's also not nearly as full-featured as a real router.

It would also require that there be two network cards in the computer, so you'd wind up having to at least buy a network card either way.

Buying a proper router or building a monowall box is a much better solution than ICS, but if your friend is hellbent on cheap-assing his way through this as much as possible, there's a guide to setting up ICS here.

Lazarus wrote:What's ICS, and why would you recommend against it?

ICS is just what he said: Internet Connection Sharing. It uses software to share an internet connection between two computers. It's an okay solution if that's all that's available to you, but the router method is much better -- it uses hardware to do what ICS does using software. As a result it's faster. You also don't have to rely on having the host computer on in order to use the client computers.

There might be other reasons why ICS sucks, but I've only ever used it to try it out.

To be fair, Monowall is basically a software solution, and it's a good solution too; the only difference is that a Monowall box is only a Monowall box, so the CPU won't ever be taken up by other tasks as might occur on a regular comptuer that someone is sitting at.

Do it the easy way, buy a dirt cheap home router.

D-Link DI-604 works and is cheap.

As mentioned before, some ISP's will only grant one IP to household/cable modem/DSL modem, and if that's the case, there's not much that can be done other than use ICS or turn one of your computers into a server for the other(s). This second option has the exact same drawbacks as ICS, plus you also need a second ethernet card on the server.

However, some ISP's allow customers to have more than one IP. In that case, they will sometimes charge the customer at the commercial rate rather than the residential rate, or simply double the residential rate. Note that the only way avoid this is to display one IP to the world by using ICS, a local server, or a router. I highly suggest the router because it also includes a hardware firewall, and allows for more options (like easy port forwarding and DMZs) that are otherwise unavailable.