OK, I know that under Windows 98 second edition, you can share a dial-up internet connection across a TCP/IP LAN. Can you do the same with an internal DSL modem? I don’t see why not, however, the DSL FAQ at USWest’s site says you need the external version for this. It is considerably more expensive, however, and I don’t see any technical reason why it can’t work. It seems like they’re just trying to influence “business” customers into buying more expensive equipment. I, however, just want to use DSL with my home network of two computers. So, anyone have any practical experience with this?
I assume you tried it and it didn’t work before you went to USWest’s FAQ about this. If not, try it and tell us what happens.
In general you can do what you want. You have to have two network cards in the computer that is running the connection sharing software, one to connect to the internal network and one to connect to the DSL modem. I suppose it’s faintly possible that your DSL provider could do something to prevent this, but I can’t think of any way that it could be done.
Microsoft’s Internet Connection Sharing is said to work pretty well when it works. It’s also said to be impossible to fix when it doesn’t work, and there are certainly times when it doesn’t work. I was never able to make it work, and I’m fairly capable. On the other hand, I had no difficulty making the original product (that Microsoft bought and turned into ICS) work reliably.
There are other products that do the same thing and are easier to set up and use; one that I have had good experience with is WinGate.
However, I recently switched to a router, and I strongly recommend that you start with one. A good low-end router costs around US$100, and may effectively cost a little less since you don’t need that second network card. A router is more stable than any program running under WIndows 98, doesn’t depend on a particular computer being on and uncrashed, and includes a pretty secure firewall. One well-regarded router is the LinkSys BEFSR11 or its big brother with a small hub included, the BEFSR41. Here is a link to some pricing information on the BEFSR11.
One caveat; if you are into gaming with servers on the Internet, NetMeeting, file transfer via ICQ or AIM, corporate Virtual Private Network, or similar stuff, you may have difficulties with any solution. Web surfing, FTP, newsgroups, … are no problem.
Whoops, missed the “internal modem” in your OP. A router won’t help with an internal modem. And it is ceratinly posible that software connection sharing won’t work, but it probably will.
Does your service come with more than one IP adress? I know that several DSL providers give you like 5 assigned IP adresses, which makes it fairly easy with Internet connection sharing. If not you end up with one computer being the interface to the DSL network, so you might as well set it up as a DHCP server with a firewall for security.
you should have gone with the external lan connection (in that’s an option, it was with mine,lan card int, lan ext or usb) I don’t think you would have much trouble shareing the connection except, at least on my service you must log on, no dialup but sometimes the signal drops off after nonuse and have to sign on. this could happen if you restart the computer, not sure I use a router that i have to tell to sign on when the signal drops off. if this happens w/ your setup you will have to sign on from that computer.
Thanks for the replies, everybody. I myself don’t have DSL yet, I’m trying to figure out what set up I need. However, I just came back from trying to configure a friends system with a desktop and a notebook, both on a TCP LAN, and the desktop currently has an internal DSL modem. Not a dissimilar situation.
Well, the LAN works fine for file and print sharing, but the notebook refuses to see the DSL connection, even though Internet Connection Sharing is, apparently, up. I gather from your replies that perhaps I should try another piece of software like WinGate? The other solution suggested was to set up the desktop as a DHCP server. Where do I go to find out how to do that?
Again, thanks.
It’s not possible to share DSL with some DSL providers. I forgot why but it happens.
A DHCP (Domain Host Control Protocol) server is not going to help you share your connection. A DHCP server allocates IP addresses from a pool, handing them out to other computers as they come up. The other choice is for you to allocate a fixed IP address to each computer on the network. Which method you use doesn’t make much difference if all your computers are non-portable; there’s an advantage to setting a portable to get its address from a DHCP server if you’re going to plug that laptop into different networks. Whether or not sharing works is independent of how you assign IP addresses.
Wingate includes a DHCP server. I think Microsoft’s ICS may include one.
Wingate might be worth a try for the sharing; you get a free trial period with full functionality. You might want to try it first with ENS (their name for NAT) installed and, if that doesn’t work, try it without ENS. If you do it without ENS, you need to install on both the server and each client computer (do the server first and it’ll automatically install a client program on all the other computers). Don’t install InterQuick until after yo get teh sharing working; it’ll just complicate things when you’re trying to get it going.
Before trying to get any sharing going, install TCP/IP on all computers and make sure you can ping them all. Assign 192.168.0.1 to the computer that will have the DSL connection.