Test your knowledge! help with shared int. connection

[bartekbartek]

I will be getting verizon dsl when i go back to school as it is the only available broadband in the area. Through a school deal, I can get 3 static IP's. The problem is there will be 4 computers that need to share the connection. do i need a router with the internet sharing thing, or can i get away with just a hub, or what can i do??? cheap solutions are preferred. I have an idea of what i am doing but i am not sure of what exact hardware i need. product recommendations are helpful too.

 

[R0BB23]

id use a router.

but there are other ways.

 

[bartekbartek]

well how would i go about assigning the IP's since there are only 3 for 4 computers??? would it be good to have 2 computers have their own IP's and then have 2 share the 3rd, or can i just hook up the router and it will take care of figuring it all out and using all 3 IP's instead of just sharing 1 IP with a couple of computers. what im trying to say is, will the router adjust everything properly to maximize the use of all 3 IP's or what? thanks also does 3 IP's increase the bandwidth at all if no serving is gonna be done??

 

[Jon]

All PCs will have the same bandwidth no matter how many IPs you have. All being on the same line can actually slow things down if they are transmitting at the same time.

A router would only require one IP address. It will dynamically assign private IPs to the 4 computers using the router as its gateway to the net.

The only way I can see you doing this with a hub is to have 2 NICs installed in one PC and using it as a router itself. One NIC will be the gateway with the preassigned IP address. The second NIC will use that gateway to route traffic to the 4th PC using a private IP address.

Once you decide on how you want to go about setting up this network let us know and we can guide you in getting it all set up.

As for now you have two choices. 1 router to share one IP address amongst 4 PCs (recommended) or 1 hub, 1 extra NIC (5 total between the 4 PCs) and the 3 IP addresses (1 IP can still be used in this setup as well).

EDIT:

2 PCs cannot share 1 IP simultaneously. One PC would have to be shut down in the interim. Whenever identical IPs are detected, one PCs connection becomes disabled automatically.

 

[bartekbartek]

if the one computer that was sharing an IP with the 4th computer was using internet connections sharing wouldnt they both be able to be online at once??? can i have the dsl modem plugged into a hub, and have all the computers plugged into that hub, and then assign 3 IP's to 3 comps, and have one setup internet connection sharing, and have the 4th computer share the connection through the hub from the 3rd computer? here's another thought. how hard would it be to take a 486, put linux in it, 2 NIC's, and have it be a server/router and hook it into a hub with the 4 other computers?? would that work as good as a internet connection/router ???? thanks again

 

[pii100]

i would get a router they go for about 100 dollars and meka sharing easy as pie but if you need the static ip i can help u with that hook a hub to the dsl plug the router and two comps into the hub and plug the other two comps in two the router that way two comps have static public ip's and two have dynamic private ip's this means all can conect to the internet and you can still have a ftp or whatever server at a static address and yes you can substitute a linux box running ip masq for a router its the same thing but with a hd and monitor