The woes of home networking - help!

[bigtone]

At home I run a desktop with NTL broadband, traditionally connected via USB. As i've started working more and more from home lately, yet SWMBO doesn't want me tying up the home PC all the time, work have bought me a Linksys 54g AP so I can use it from anywhere in the house (or indeed garage! ) over my laptop.

Been playing with this for nearly two weeks now, and still can't get anywhere....

1) First PCMCIA card, a 3COM card, caused BSOD's after approx 2 mins of running. Have now borrowed a linksys card from someone at work, which the laptop seems to like, at last...

2) Utility software can see the AP, but can't 'associate' with it (Bad BO? Weird nervous twitch?)

3) Turns out, from ultra techy at work, that NTL provide just one IP, so i'd really need a router as opposed to an AP, but I could set up the USB connection to the desktop, then ethernet out through switch to AP, and use Internet Connection Sharing from the laptop to, erm, share the connection.

4) Desktop is on XP ... which has an internet sharing network connection wizard ... which creates a network setup disk ... but can only write to a floppy ... which my desktop doesn't have ... and I don't have the XP disk ... but then it wouldn't make a difference as the network setup app will only run on 98, ME and other XP machines, not 2000 which i'm running on the laptop. AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH.......

5) I figure i'd have a bash at setting the AP and laptop up on the same range, then also setting the NIC in the desktop to the same settings, hoping that the PC's would be intelligent enough to work out the rest for themselves

So, at the moment I have the following:

USB Net Connection on Desktop - IP - 81.99.70.60, Subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway - 81.99.70.254 (This is DHCP from NTL)

NIC in desktop - IP - 192.168.1.4, Subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.1.1

AP - IP 192.168.1.245, subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.1.1

PCMCIA WiFi card - IP 192.168.1.3, subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.1.1

Now, the PC's can ping each other, not a problem, but how can I convince the laptop to use the internet connection supplied to the desktop?

Any advice gratefully appreciated before a pc/ap/switch/window interface moment.

Thanks all, Tony...

[BliarOut]

Not sure it's the best way to go, but the def GW on the PC,s needs to be the machine sharing the connection out, so 192.168.1.4

[icamm]

Okay I'll see if I can remember how to do this .

You shouldn't need to worry about the floppy disk thing.

Setup ICS on the desktop with your USB network port as the Internet side and your other NIC as your private network. Ignore the bit about creating a floppy as you already seem to know how to configure your network settings on the laptop.

Setup the laptop so that it's on the same network as the internal desktop interface and make sure the gateway is the desktop's internal network card (ie the .4 address). However ICS might insist on changing this IIRC as I think it has hardcoded addresses. This has caught me out before when I setup a home network with numbers I wanted and then later decided to setup ICS. It refused to work with anything but it's default addresses (despite accepting my original addresses in the configuration).

That should be it really.

Basically ICS turns your desktop into NAT (Network Address Translation) router which takes the traffic from your laptop and send it out to the internet using it's own USB network address. When packets return it works out that they are really for your laptop and - hey presto.

[x5x3]

easiest option is to invest in a wireless router, set up is about 5 mins, I bought one for about £60 the other day and it came with a PC card.

[arcturus]

For Microsoft ICS to work, you need either to allow the desktop machine to acquire it's address automatically (in which case it will assign itself 192.168.0.1) or you need to set it manually to 192.168.0.1

Then either set the other devices on the LAN to the same range, say 192.168.0.2 for the AP and 192.168.0.3 for the laptop OR let them get their address automatically by DHCP. When you enable ICS on the desktop you also activate a mini DHCP server on the desktop so the other machines will automatically get a relevant IP adress from the desktop.

If you assign addresses manually, then set the gateway as 192.168.0.1 (ie the desktop machine)

Note that for ICS to work you must use addresses in the range 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.254.

So using addresses such as 192.168.1.1 will not work.

More info from Microsoft here

>> Edited by arcturus on Saturday 11th December 18:49

[bigtone]

Superb stuff - thanks guys!

Just been following the above and making the necessary changes, just one question - what should the gateway of the desktops NIC be? The same as the NTL USB or the same as itself, ie 192.168.0.1?

Will get a router when I can afford it, but will make do with this for now, seeing as work bought it for me!

Cheers, Tony.

[arcturus]

bigtone said:

.. what should the gateway of the desktops NIC be? ..

192.168.0.1 or better still leave it all on automatic.

[guydw]

I haven't read the whole thing, but...

the desktop connects to the internet, and has a routable IP address.

All internet traffic must cross the desk top.

The desktop is basically being a router, so has an interface on the internet side, and an interface on the home net side. The desktop has a gateway of the internet. Do not put a GW in the config for the HomeNet NIC.

The Home Net Pc's will use the NIC on the Internet PC as their GW.

This can be done wirelessly or with cables.

You can probably use the MS connection sharing, or use a 3rd party proxy ( a better solution).

Also, make sure you get a software firewall else you will get hacked sooner rather than later.

An inexpensive ADSL router is a much better option, doesn't need to be wireless, you can plug an existing wirelees hub into the back of it if you like.