Using a spare PC as a router

[Gandalf]

it'd be a nat firewall almost certainly.

[tugs]

Originally posted by Gandalf-LordOfJelly@Oct 1 2003, 12:24 PM
it'd be a nat firewall almost certainly.

And hence I asked a deliberately leading question :-)

It all depends what you wanna get out of it at the end. If you just want a "NAT firewall", just run ICS on windows...

[DogMeat]

Originally posted by Rad_Man@Oct 1 2003, 12:38 PM
I gave up on the linux coyote thing and just went to pc world(cough cough) and purchased a belkin Cable modem router with 100Mb 4 port switch and built in manageable firewall. COST : £40.00

Works a treat , supports VPN connections both ways and is a breeze to install, added bonus LIFETIME WARRANTY

So did I.

Pity they ain't Open Source though - I would have nicked it instead.. :narnar:

DM

[JB]

Can i buy a router and still use it with my 1 IP, or would i need to get more IP's? (probably at a cost from my isp)

Obviously i'd want to play games, web browse, get mail etc etc and do the usual stuff.

[Anonymous]

Assuming it is a NAT router then your router would use your 1 IP for it's WAN interface and all PCs on LAN side of router can use private IPs in range 192.168.x.x with a mask of 255.255.255.0. Set default gateway of client PCs to LAN side IP address of router (which you can normally set through the router config)

[JB]

Anyone recommend a mid range Router?  Prefer built in hub/switch, NAT obviously, no external modem needed and anything else that would come in handy, hardware firewalls cheap now-a-days?

[Doorman]

Well, I've got one of these and I am more than happy with it. Can't say more. Althought you may not want a print server they do others. Checkit.

[Doorman]

On the subject of routers, any of you network dudes know if it is possible to ensure that each pc in a network keeps it's own IP? Every so often I have to alter the port forwarding because the IPs change.

[OldBloke]

Just disable DHCP in your router and give your PCs static IP addresses.

Your router should be 192.168.1.1

So setup your first PC with an IP that you want it to have (to fit in with your existing port forwarding info) and give it a default gateway of 192.168.1.1

Do any other PCs the same. You may have to set DNS info for the PC as well.

[JB]

Thanks ron but i was after something with a built in modem.  Which i did happen to find on the Netgear website i'd appreciate anyone's comments on the DG814(replaced by DG834.)  Mainly would it be suitable for what i want, playing games online, msn messenger, kazaa and irc.  Basically is there anything i wouldn't be able to do that i can now with a non-nat'd setup?



Btw i'm fecked if i can get this nat windows 2k thing sorted.  Can't traceroute, ping or indeed do anything from the 2nd pc.  I also get an error message when the server starts up and looking into the event viewer it says:

 'Unable to contact a DHCP server. The Automatic Private IP Address 169.254.51.129 will be assigned to dial-in clients. Clients may be unable to access resources on the network.'

I get the same error message but with 6 or so diffrent ip's, all with the same 1st and 2nd set of sigits but with differing 3rd and 4th.

[tugs]

Win2k and the wonderful 169.254 addressing. Microsoft bought that range for what can best be called "plug and play" networking - that it, if your machine is configured to get its address from DHCP and the machine doesn't find a DHCP server, then it will randomly pick an address from the 169.254 space, send a few packets out to the address it's hoping to pick and see if anybody says "hey, that's my address, get off it", and if not selects it. Therefore if you put two machines on a LAN and let them do this, they'll get addresses and be able to see eachother on IP. Which is good (and suspiciously close to how the much-maligned Appletalk used to select addresses).

The fact you're getting that on your server, presuming your server has a fixed IP (otherwise it'll be useless as a gateway) indicates to me that you're running a dial-in server, and it wants to know what addresses should be assigned to devices connecting to it. This does not sound like what you want to set up if you're just using it as a dialout router. Indeed, for security purposes, dialin should be disabled unless you really need it.

[tugs]

Not being funny, and maybe I'm missing the point here, but if you just want NAT, why not just run the built-in Windows Internet Connection Sharing? Not really "custom-configurable", but it would work.

[Doorman]

Originally posted by OldBloke@Oct 1 2003, 10:17 PM
Just disable DHCP in your router and give your PCs static IP addresses.

Your router should be 192.168.1.1

So setup your first PC with an IP that you want it to have (to fit in with your existing port forwarding info) and give it a default gateway of 192.168.1.1

Do any other PCs the same. You may have to set DNS info for the PC as well.

Thanks Oldone, just the job!