Software router i suppose

[jj]

Hi peeps

After a bit of advice, and i dont want adive like us elinux or buy a hardware/router, cause i want to do what i want to do with exisiting hardware and software I can download.

Right got a gateway pee cee compaq deskpro 350 mhz pentium II, 64mb ram, win win2kpro on it, its got two nics, and my usb broadband modemn is connected to this.

I have got a higher spece pee cee also runiing win2kpro and a laptop running p2 266, 64 mb of ram running win98se

I have got the network up and running, but obvioulsy the other pee cee cant see the laptop cause they are connected to different nic, and so are on diff network segments.

I wont to be able to share the internet between all the three pee cees and for all three pee cees to be able to share each others resources directly.

Now I know if I was running winxpro on the gatway machine i could just use that wondeful feature called bridiging, but im not, so i cant.

SO waht i really want is your lots advice on either software that can do that for me, or basically a software router i can set up on the gatway machine.  Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions

[Ilwrath]

Right got a gateway pee cee compaq deskpro 350 mhz pentium II, 64mb ram, win win2kpro on it, its got two nics, and my usb broadband modemn is connected to this.

So, really, it has THREE NICs, as the USB connection from the BB modem is also an emulated NIC.

I find pictures are worth a few thousand words, especially when we are seperated by the common language of English...  

So, right now, you've got something like

Code: [Select]


GATEWAY PC -----> Internet
 |     |
PC1   PC2


What you're missing is the connection between PC1 and PC2.  (The gateway won't let those two boxes see each other)  I've not messed with having three logical NICs in the Win2k box before...  There SHOULD be a way to do what you're asking, but I'm not positive my idea will work.  

You might be able to do it by setting the default settings for each NIC like this:

Internet NIC connection:
[assigned by ISP] (shouldn't need to do anything here)

Gateway PC PC1 NIC:
IP: 192.168.0.1
Gateway Mask: 255.255.255.127

Gateway PC PC2 NIC:
IP: 192.168.0.128
Gateway Mask: 255.255.255.127

Then, you should be able to add the following two commands from a DOS prompt:

route -p add 192.168.0.1 mask 255.255.255.127 192.168.0.127 metric 1

route -p add 192.168.0.128 mask 255.255.255.127 192.168.0.1 metric 1

This adds two static routes to your registry.  One for getting from 192.168.0.1 subnet to 192.168.0.128, and one for the inverse, getting from 128 back to 1.

Of course, this is somewhat theoretical, since I haven't tried it.  The really simple way is to just get a repeating hub off the gateway PC.  That way, you don't need a NIC, subnet, and static routing information for each and every computer you want to connect.  :-)

[jj]

Thnaks for the reply, ill give it a try when i get chance

[adz]

The best solution for your current situation would be a cheap 5 port mini-swith/hub, however, if you wish to keep your existing hardware setup, I would suggest installing a linux distro on the gateway machine along with a nifty little software firewall/router called Firestarter. I know thats not what you wanted to hear, but it really is the only solution I can think of as I personally wouldn't even bother trying to do that with Windows. Additionally, you could also install Samba and use the gateway machine as a secure file server on your home network. This here will give you a little info on whats involved.

[the_leander]

I personally use ipcop as a perminant firewall router, and beyond a few teathing troubles I had getting it settup (I'd fouled up on the ppp config - fixed after 5 minutes of head scratching) it has ran perfectly ever since, I have used BeOS, Linux (Morphix), Zeta and windows 2000 through it without a single issue thus far.

As with the above poster, I would have to say if you are going to do this with windows expect no end of troubles in terms of getting things going in the way that you want time. Windows just does not make for an easy gateway setup.

Again its not what you probably wanted to hear, but its the best advice I can offer.

My router is a compaq deskpro (small form factor) EN 6350, Pentium 2, 64mb ram 6Gb hard disk.

IPcop is controled through a web interface and is not accessable from the outside, though initial install is done via terminal. (so you'll need your monitor and keyboard first time around)

[Piru]

@JJ
I know this isn't the solution for you (you explicitly said no linux), but since it was so easy (I never thought it'd be THAT easy)... I did this by installing Debian GNU/Linux to the routing machine and:
apt-get install ipmasq

Since I had both NICs already set up, it worked out of the box. For sharing network I installed samba and smbfs (oh, and that was a bit more work).

[adz]

ClarkConnect is another goodie, its fully self contained and it pretty much does everything. Like IPCop, it is managed via a web interface.

ClarkConnect

For this kind of task, you can't look at anything but Linux, sorry.

[whabang]

*cough* *cough*
There is a Windows-alternative! It's called 602Lan suite 2004, and it's a complete NAT/DHCP/WEB/POP3/SMTP/FTP/Proxy server. It's easy to configure, and it doesn't take much recources. The NAT-service should give you the functionality you need.

[adz]

There is a Windows-alternative!

How can it be a Windows alternative when you need Windows to run it :-D :-D :-D Besides, its not totally free. Plus the system requirements seem a little too restrictive. ClarkConnect, IPCop etc. etc. are totally free and can even be used on something as old as a 486. Just putting in another two cents worth.

[whabang]

OK, it's a Windows-requiring alternative. Satisfied? :-P

It's free, as long as you have five, or less users.

[jj]

Holly cow, my thread just reappeared from no where, anyway I got it sorted, just installed xp on gateway machine and bridged the two connections, works like a charm.

On a differnet note, I have got a 266MHz pentium 2 dell laptop with 64mb or ram,I tried win98se, win2kpro on it, and both were so slow booting and doing anything it was unfunny, so for a lugh i thought ill install xp, should be funny, u could have knocked me over with a feather it boots in no time, and is very responsive, i was flabbergasted, never expected it to be more responsive than win98 on such a low spec machine

[adz]

whabang wrote:
OK, it's a Windows-requiring alternative. Satisfied? :-P

Yes ;-) :-P

However, I should give credit where credit is due, you came up with a Windows based solution, which is what the original poster wanted in the first place :-)

[Casper]

On a differnet note, I have got a 266MHz pentium 2 dell laptop with 64mb or ram,I tried win98se, win2kpro on it, and both were so slow booting and doing anything it was unfunny, so for a lugh i thought ill install xp, should be funny, u could have knocked me over with a feather it boots in no time, and is very responsive, i was flabbergasted, never expected it to be more responsive than win98 on such a low spec machine

The Windows XP boot time is a bit of an illusion since they moved the loading of a couple of things (such as services) to after the desktop has popped up. So you see the desktop quicker but it's rather unresponsive until everything's been loaded.

I also noted a speed increase, especially in games, when I installed XP on an old AMD K6 450Mhz instead of Windows Me, so they've definatly improved it.

[billchase]

Coyote Linux works great.  It is small enough to fit
on a floppy disk.  The coyote disk can be created and
setup inside of windows (very easy).  Once you have
created the floppy with the setup program, just boot
with that disk and you should be up and running.

C Snyder

[rayt]

yeah you should run linux on your gateway.. I have a linux gateway since some years and its now running a few months non stop without a problem.. and you could also run mldonkey for example on linux and control it with a windoze gui client.. works very well..