I’m looking into possibly knocking together a simple computer to have as an always-on hub for sharing the apartment’s broadband connection. Doesn’t have to be too high-tech, long as it does the job. Anyone got any suggestions for specs, or any idea how much I’d be looking at spending?
Buy a 4-port router (about 3000NT give or take). Wireless costs more. Need more than 4? 8-port routers exist. Or simlpy buy a cheapo hub/switch. Better than a computer.
We’ve got a router, but I was under the impression one need a computer to activate the connection proper, and that if that connection was to be shared, that computer would have to be on. A gateway, of sorts I guess. Or a network server? Terminology’s not my thing when it comes to computers.
Depends on what your hardware is.
If you have an external box that your DSL/cable connection goes into, from which you run an ethernet cable to your PC, you can use a router. Just plug the ethernet cable into one port of the router, and all of your PCs get plugged into the other ports with more ethernet cables.
If your DSL phone line or cable gets plugged into a card that you have to jam into your PC, then you’re going to have to use the PC as a router.
We have a ADSL connection at the office and one ADSL modem (provided by the ISP I assume). The bandwith is shared via a simple hub, there is no PC or other equipment constantly running to provide access for my laptop.
IP routers are AFAIK more smarter than a hub and hence more expensive, not to mention IP switches.
A hub should however be sufficient for a home network. IMHO.
It depends on your ISP. My Hinet connection (in Taichung, it may vary from place to place) sets up a WAN connection from the dialing computer to their computer. Just a hub will not cut it (I know, I tried. A router might have worked, but I can’t see why). I have friends on other companies who have no trouble just using a hub.
I use ICS (Internet connection sharing). You’ll need two network cards on the gateway computer - one connecting to your DSL modem and the other to your home network.
For the record, my internet access box is scrounged from dead computer parts I’ve found in the doorway of my building - it cost me a total of $1000 for RAM and $2000 for a monitor.
Tetsuo:
Assuming your Router is of any decent quality it can log into the connection for you. Just get into the admin window and input the login and password. Your router will then be your gateway. The router will distiguish between WAN (public IP) and your LAN (private IP).
Rascal:
In some cases your ADSL modem can also be your router. It has the capability built in. That’s probably how your hub can share.
Essentially you need a router somewhere to have more than 1 computer (LAN) to share an ADSL connection (WAN) unless you are leasing more than one public IP address.
Hope this helps.
What kind of connection do you have? Do you need to login before using the internet? Or plugging in the network cable is enough?
Depending on your requirements, a home (wireless?) router as suggested will do the job just fine. If you need more ports (usually they come with 4 ports) you can hook up a cheap switch.
If you have a cheap box standing around, you can make a Firewall, proxy with access control and/or a home server out of it. A old Pentium 90 with 128MB ram, few GB hard-drive space, two network cards and a cheap hub/switch is all you need. …plus one of these:
(sorted by recommendation)
http://www.clarkconnect.org/projects/home.php …also a web-, print-, file-server, blah blah-server, content filter…
http://www.astaro.com/php/statics.php?action=asl …free for non-commercial use (dsl setup not so trivial)
http://www.ipcop.org/ …basic firewall with proxy
http://smoothwall.org/get/ …used to be cool
I did install such things* few years ago for some companies, most of those boxes are still in use and running.
*mostly commercial Astaro with virus protection or IP Cop.
[quote=“bobdobba”]It depends on your ISP. My Hinet connection (in Taichung (Taizhong), it may vary from place to place) sets up a WAN connection from the dialing computer to their computer. Just a hub will not cut it (I know, I tried. A router might have worked, but I can’t see why). I have friends on other companies who have no trouble just using a hub.
I use ICS (Internet connection sharing). You’ll need two network cards on the gateway computer - one connecting to your DSL modem and the other to your home network.
[snip][/quote]
Sounds like your HINET connection is a “dialup” DSL thing ? I heard there Taiwan had something like this :s
ICS architecture is old stuff. Nowadays, your DSL modem will plug directly into the router. Unless your DSL modem is internal? If so, then that would explain why you’d need an “always on” gateway computer. If so, then that computer can be any old thing than can support dual NICs. You could probably get an old Win 98 box and use that.
So much trouble … 
lsieh: After I read what Grayson said I felt like a fool, since if the router can be configured to do the dialing then there’s obviously no problem just using a router. I’m just not very familiar with them beyond the theory and had no idea a modern router could do PPPOE dialing.
Tetsuo, you’ll need to do some research to get the cheapest router that can do that (although I have no idea what the standard specs for a router are - maybe they all do).
[quote]Rascal:
In some cases your ADSL modem can also be your router. It has the capability built in. That’s probably how your hub can share.[/quote]
Yep, that makes sense.
Just had a fruitful discussion at forumosa.com/3/viewtopic.php?t=18606 about a similar problem.
My new ADSL box has four sockets in the back. Turn off the firewalls on your computers and all you have to do is plug them in to the box and away you go. O’ course, you’re without a firewall then…
Depending on what service you’re using, you might not even need a router. If your ISP allows for multiple IPs (which is basically all the DSL providers), then you plug the DSL modem and computers into a hub and have the computers dial individually.
In any case, routers should definitely be less than NT 2500. There are branded ones going for around NT 1000.