WinXP internet connection sharing alternative??

[firephoto]

I'm stuck with dial-up at home and I'm getting sick of all the problems associated with XP's ICS. The computer that is the gateway (has the modem) gets phone book errors or other various unable to connect errors if it tries to access the internet while a connection that started from the other computer (client) is being dialed.

What I'd like to do is just have a dedicated box with the modem act as a router/firewall or such and all the computers connect through it to get to the internet. Anyone doing this or have any recomendations on this setup?

[James_F]

Two I've used are:

WinGate (http://wingate.deerfield.com)

WinProxy (http://www.winproxy.com/english/home/hm_business_home_en.asp)

But to tell you the one built into WinXP is pretty good. But I guess if you are having trouble... WinGate is free for 2 users.

[firephoto]

I used to use wingate when I had win98, but XP handled the sharing much better. My problems seem to originate from the way XP handles connecting with the modem. If you start the connection with IE or outlook or any MS program it dials up in a different way than if you manually start the connection or use a non-MS program. This in itself is a very stupid idea on their part but I suppose it is that way to make you lean towards using only MS programs. :(

If it wasn't for some video capturing/editing related things I'd be using linux.

[firephoto]

Anyone have any experience with SMC products?

After hours of searching, I'm thinking about getting this:
SMC7004ABR Barricade™4-Port 10/100Mbps Broadband Router (http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?sec=Products&pg=Product-Details&prod=67&site=c)

It has a serial port and does dialup PPP and seems to be an easy solution.

[Richard King]

I installed a Starband system for a customer (a 5 desk small office system) and connected with the recommended WinProxy software. This thing wouldn't work no matter what I did. The customer had Win98SE. At the suggestion of Starband I had the customer upgrade to WinXP drop WinProxy and switch to ICS. After making the change all went very well. I was amazed since Starband sells WinProxy with their small office systems and gets a kick back for the product. Starband, of course, is an always on service, so that might make a difference in your situation.

[Mark Holtz]

You may have to do some searching, but you may want to try to find a router that does dial-on-demand with DHCP services. I, however, don't know of any off the top of my head.

I have heard of people using a Lanset router for their ADSL connection. The Lanset router provides the PPPoE services to the DSL router.

[firephoto]

Thanks for the advice guys!
I ordered the SMC7004ABR Barricade from Amazon today for $59. I was surprised the price was so low there. It was $10 or more higher everywhere else.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005NBR6/qid=1049692549/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-4949654-1104632

Is there any need to run Zone Alarm or any firewall software when I use this type of router?

[James_F]

Zac, relying only on NAT is like relying on a codom bought at a 7/Eleven restroom.

[BobMurdoch]

Sharing a DialUp connection is like sharing a straw AT THE SAME TIME, even if you can pull it off, why bother as the throughput is so miniscule as it will take forever to load even the simplest webpage.

I know $50 a month is a lot for some people, but it is fast becoming a requirement as sits continue to push more and more date through the pipe towards us.

A LinkSYS Cable/DBS router along with McAfee Personal Firewall Plus software protects my home computer and the system works well in maintaining throughput while protecting my computer from attack..

[firephoto]

Wireless is the only "faster" (256k) option I have at home and it's $80/month plus $600 up front for equipment. The fiber optics cable 3 poles away doesn't do me much good and my own wireless netork plans are coming along VERY slowly. ;)

Dialup is about $15 a month, and the second phone line is around $20.

[James_F]

Which is why a software firewall is better than a hardware filewall. I no longer rely on hardware firewalls (by themselves) at my work because there is just too much going on. Yes the WinXP firewall is poor, but something like Norton Internet Security (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/nis_pe/) or other products will give you much better results than a NAT firewall. NAT is better than nothing, but if you are serious then you must have a software solution too.

Info on NAT.

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/rfc/rfc1631.html
Privacy, Security, and Debugging Considerations
Unfortunately, NAT reduces the number of options for providing security. With NAT, nothing that carries an IP address or information derived from an IP address (such as the TCP-header checksum) can be encrypted. While most application-level encryption should be ok, this prevents encryption of the TCP header.

On the other hand, NAT itself can be seen as providing a kind of privacy mechanism. This comes from the fact that machines on the backbone cannot monitor which hosts are sending and receiving traffic (assuming of course that the application data is encrypted).

The same characteristic that enhances privacy potentially makes debugging problems (including security violations) more difficult. If a host is abusing the Internet is some way (such as trying to attack another machine or even sending large amounts of junk mail or something) it is more difficult to pinpoint the source of the trouble because the IP address of the host is hidden.

What does that mean to you?

NAT automatically provides firewall-style protection without any special set-up. That is because it only allows connections that are originated on the inside network. This means, for example, that an internal client can connect to an outside FTP server, but an outside client will not be able to connect to an internal FTP server because it would have to originate the connection, and NAT will not allow that. It is still possible to make some internal servers available to the outside world via inbound mapping, which maps certain well know TCP ports (e.g.. 21 for FTP) to specific internal addresses, thus making services such as FTP or Web available in a controlled way. In summary, NAT translates your internal IP and helps prevent connections originating from outside of your computer, in effect providing some characteristics of a firewall, however it is not an actual hardware firewall.

[James_F]

Originally posted by Zac
James_F, port-level NAT routers will effectively block all unrequested incoming traffic.
All is incorrect, they will block most. You can't get incomming data if all your ports were blocked.

[James_F]

I disagree Zac. If you have a broadband connection you are as vulnerable as any business. The question you have to ask yourself is do you want your computer used for illegal activities? If the answer is no, the only way to truly stop these attacks is to have a firewall and NAT is no firewall. Any computer is able to host files...

[gcutler]

Zac, James, Here's a picture of a puppy (His name is Angus), everyone take a nice soothing breath :p

[James_F]

How come Roger gets women and I get a dog? :confused:

[gcutler]

I thought Zac might take offense to the women pics based on his earlier posts about sexism, and Everyone Loves a Puppy!!!

[firephoto]

Most guys love them "puppies" though. ;)

I have zone alarm pro running now, would reseting all the program and network control options once the router is installed be sufficient? Or is there something better?

I'm having network problems that are either zone alarm related or ICS related now with one machine but I hope to have it fixed when I can set up everything the same and compare settings. My shares don't show up right or even work sometimes. Everything is running XP too.

[gcutler]

You might want to turn off/reset Zone Alarm or ICS TEMPORARILY when you get your router installed. It won't be perfect but at least you'l have minimum protection. Once you get your shares setup correctly and consistantly then turn back on the SW Firewalls and you can tweek the settings. Nothing to drive you more crazy than setting up sharing and not knowing if it is SW firewall problem or general networking problem

[gcutler]

Originally posted by firephoto
Most guys love them "puppies" though. ;)

As long as they are "Organic" Puppies ;)

[firephoto]

Well I got the router installed and all is working fine with that. Hardest part of the install was finding a good out of the way place for the modem/router to sit so the cables weren't such a mess! I updated the firmware to the latest also.

Found my network problem too. The netbios setting was wrong on one of the computers. Netbios over tcp/ip was disabled in the advanced tcp/ip settings - WINS tab. I set it to default. I'm guessing this is there because of the win98 laptop that's on the network, or does XP-XP need this to share files?

In my LAN properties I have:
Client for Ms Networks
File and Printer Sharing for Ms Networks
TCP/IP

All my shares are showing up again and working normal and I uninstalled zone alarm on the two machines that are on all the time.

[gcutler]

With the Router acting as the DHCP server, leaving the TCPIP settings for XP at default, you sould be fine. It has been so long since I've touched Win98 that I forget, but I don't believe I did anything different than the defaults (and as you list Client for MS Network, File & Print Sharing for MS Networks, TCP/IP.

Only change that I would make is make sure that the Workgroup name is the same on all machines (otherwise there are alot of issues with "Browse Masters" and such, not worth going into).

But the confusing part is I remember that the Workgroup Name on Win98 was defined in the Network Settings (I think I remember?) and on Win2000 and XP it is under "My Computer", "Computer Name".