In preparation for a cross-country move, Mr. Athena has moved out of his office and into our house to work for the next couple weeks. After that, we’re packing up and moving, and we’ll both be working at home.
Currently, we have a DSL line with what I think is a hub, and we’re both hooked up to it for internet access. We have two separate IP addresses that allows us to do this.
After we move, we’ll have a cable modem. I have no clue what configuration we’ll end up with to get us both going on that.
Given the current situation, is there a way we can access each other’s computers? We’d like to share a printer, and it’d be nice to be able to transfer files, etc.
If this will take more than a few minutes to set up, I probably won’t do it, as our whole situation will change in 3 weeks. However, if it’s something we can set up now and it’ll continue to work with the new cable modem, then I might.
I’m not familiar with DSL only cable setups but cross file sharing can easily be done by:
1: Getting a $ 6.00 “flipped” ethernet cable from Circuit City that will attach the two PCs via their ethernet ports without needing a hub (2 PC’s only) and you can setup a workgroup and set parameters for them to share files via the network setup applet in Control Panel. This assumes your ethernet ports are not being used by your DSL setup.
2: For $ 40 or so getting a USB crossover cable (they comes with drivers) that will use the USB poerts of the PCS to share files.
3: Now, if you are using your ethernet NIC cards to attach to the DSL “hub” it might be as simple as just setting up a common workgroup and assigning file access and remote administration rights to each PC via the network setup applet in Control Panel. No additional equipment necessary.
If you already has a hub, that can be used to share a cable modem connection as well. As for sharing a printer, you need to connect it to one of the computers, and than set that as shared.
BTW don’t forget to install a firewall on your computers if you haven’t done so already.
To double Urban Ranger’s warning - get a firewall. When you share hard drives between two PC’s you have shared in inadvertantly to the world, too, unless you’re very careful.
A firewall will block the world’s access to your PC’s. The hookup looks like this
There’s some nice firewalls available with a built-in hub. I’ve got the Linksys BEFsr41 and I’m very pleased with it. It also hides the number of PC’s you have to the Cable modem folks don’t charge you each PC - you just get one IP from them.
No no no no no… you don’t want a hub, you need a router! Okay, if you want to set up multi-homing or internet sharing or whatever your OS calls it, you CAN get away with just a hub, but then the second computer is always dependant upon the first computer for its internet access.
The Linksys mentioned above is a ROUTER first, with the convenience of a four-port SWITCH (instead of a hub, but for our purposes calling it a hub is good enough). Additionally it’s a NAT (network address translation) firewall, which is the good kind. It’s also a DHCP server for anything connected to the network.
A hub can be used alone to allow multiple computers to access via a cable modem. You just need two (usually DHCP) addresses from the Cable company - there’s usually a fee for more than one (AT&T charges $5 more a month).
cable-modem >> hub >> both computers (each with a different IP).
The trouble is that sharing data disks between the computers also shares it to the cable modem which in turn shares it to the internet, the hub has no brains and no blocking ability. You can get around this with very careful configuration and some decent firewall software (Zone Alarm, etc.). I don’t trust Microsoft Operating security farther than I can throw my monitor so I don’t like this solution.
Connection sharing is this:
Cable Modem > PC1 > PC2
and, yes, PC2 is dependent on PC1 for access. PC1 is doing NAT for PC2. I don’t like it for the same security reasons as above.
Finally, a switch is a hub. A hub, however, is not necessarily a switch. It’s all about flow control.
Let me third the mentioned Linksys. Very easy to set up. Its as secure as you need at home. 100Mbs flow between computers is very nice too. I own one and its been the best 70$ I’ve ever spent on computer stuff.
dead0man
Routers with NAT translation are sold quite often as a firewall, but in reality it isn’t. NAT just hides your real IP addres. Good enough to stop 95% of the hackers out there. Assuming port forwarding and tunneling is not turned on. A real firewall sniffs every packet that moves through it and home firewalls are good enough to keep 99.8% of the hackers out.
A switch is much better that a hub because there are less collisions. In the right set-up, you can get 200Mps with a switch. You should buy a switch instead of a hub since the prices are very close.