Connection sharing with Win2k Pro.

Anyone know if it’s possible to share a cable connection without using an external router like Linksys?

I’ve set this up before with such a device and it works flawlessly. But today I was asked to do this using the routing services built into Windows 2000 Pro.

I haven’t had much luck.

So far, the setup is like this:

One PC with 2 NICs, one connected to the Cable modem, the other goes into a hub along with the other PCs that require access.

The main PC has DHCP running and it is assigning addresses correctly. I have connectivity to the Internet and to the other “client” PCs. But the client pcs don’t get out to the web.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

You’ll need to set up Internet Connection Sharing on the main PC. The others will go through it as long as they’re set to obtain IPs and DNS servers automatically.

I’m a little confused when you say the main PC has DHCP running and assigning addresses. There’s no DHCP server in Win2K Pro.

Anyhow, disable any DHCP servers running on the network before installing ICS. It will hand out internal IPs in the 192.168.0.x range.

Thanks! We’ll try that out.

DHCP service is actually included in the version we’re using…go figure.

I always use static IP addresses on the local network. The win2k box will be 192.168.0.1 on the local network, so use this number for default gateway under your network settings for the other computers. Then assign each other computer a static IP address of 192.168.0.x where x is a unique number for each computer.

I’ve always found it to be very simple and error free when I’ve done it this way.

The other machines won’t be able to get to the Internet with that configuration. Something has to perform Network Address Translation to let the internal nonroutable IPs (192.168.x.x) access other networks. Win2K Pro can do it with ICS, but it requires that all the other machines be set for DHCP.

Of course if you’re running 2000 Server, as ookpik2 may or may not be doing, you can install NAT through the Routing and Remote Access snap-in. This has a lot more flexibility, and does allow for static IPs.

Then explain how I’m posting this.

Is your router doing NAT?