Need help with NTL Broadband sharing please

[Zak33]

Sorry to bother you people, but I gotta sort out a LAN near end of Sept....ie a few weeks away

And I need help setting my Cable Broadband PC as a gateway.

Anyone that can help, please do

Jiff Lemon said he might help, but I haven't heard from him

[CocoPops]

Get yourself an old PC (P1/P2 spec is fine, even a 486)
Get yourself a copy of Smoothwall.

Sorted, it installed a firewall/router onto the PC.

CableModem ->Smoothwall->Network.

Easy peasy and very cheap as the smoothwall is FREE, you just need the old PC.

[Zak33]

anyway for THIS PC to be that server?

[Shad]

Yes, you'll need another network card in your PC and some software such as Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) which is built into Windows.

Smoothwall (or equivilent dedicated routing solution) is BY FAR the better option so please give that some consideration. If you're thinking it's too technical or too hard then don't; it's probably as simple as phaffing around with ICS is.

Obviously once you have a router (i.e. the Smoothwall, your PC or an OEM solution) just hook it up to a switch or hub and connect the rest of the PCs.

[Zak33]

K....I'll think on that.

Ta

[CocoPops]

Then you just leave the smoothwall box running and ANY PC/Xbox/PS2 can use teh web once connected to your LAN.

I have 3 PCs, a PS2 and an XBOX all connected thru my smoothwall box.

[Howard]

You don't need another PC or any of that bollocks
My Network Places > Network Connections > Broadband > Properties > Advanced > Allow other users to connect to the internet using this computer's connection.

Et voila

[directhex]

our house features 13 pc's, of which 2 are servers, of which 1 is a debian-based gateway/firewall/router

--jo

[CocoPops]

Originally posted by Howard
You don't need another PC or any of that bollocks
My Network Places > Network Connections > Broadband > Properties > Advanced > Allow other users to connect to the internet using this computer's connection.

Et voila

Providing that "your" PC is on 24/7 in case one of the other PCs needs the web

Where as with the Smoothwall box it can be a silent P2based machine that is on 24/7 etc

[Nick]

Originally posted by Howard
You don't need another PC or any of that bollocks
My Network Places > Network Connections > Broadband > Properties > Advanced > Allow other users to connect to the internet using this computer's connection.

Et voila

Umm, we tried that. It don't work.

There's something screwy about NTL Cable, I'm no expert but apparently its something to do with NTL Cable already being a network and the connected PC is assigned an IP. Any other PCs have to be masked behind the connected PC or NTL Cable won't work.

BT BB is a piece of pee, but this is different... just networking the PCs together and setting the gateway machine to share its connection wouldn't work.

Gonna stop now as I have reached the limit of my knowledge on this... anyone wanna know how to cook? I'm ya boy for that!

[Jiff Lemon]

Apologies Zak, you should have mailed me! PM me old chap for a mail addy

Starting the guide now.....

[Howard]

Actually the networking and sharing internet works fine with NTL BB :S Windows XP treats it as a cable/DSL connection anyway and shares it just like that. Yes the set top box is sort of connected as a network and is given an IP but that makes no difference. The other computers when connected to yours are just given a network IP such as 192.168.0.2 and when you browse the internet with those, your IP will remain the same as the IP NTL gave you. Basically you can still share the internet. If you can't, then something's wrong with your computer.

And BT BB isn't crap, it's actually better than NTL BB.

[directhex]

i've networked up some ntl cable for a client before. was fairly easy.

--jo

[Shad]

Originally posted by Howard
And BT BB isn't crap, it's actually better than NTL BB.

...except that it's slower (i.e. 512kbps verses 600kbps for standard '512kb' packages) and uses an inferior technology (copper phone wires max out at around 4mbps with ADSL (someone correct me if that's wrong) where as the cable network could sustain 48mbps downstream and 10mbps upstream)

[Jonny M]

Current ADSL standards can take 8Mbps downstream, but on our old phone network you'd have to live about 2 metres from the exchange to get that.

It's strange, in other countries ADSL is tearing ahead of cable, cable is often the cheaper option. Except here, where BT have been so slow to actually do anything.

Telewest announced 1Mb cable over a year ago, and since then have moved onto 2Mb. During this time BT have done nothing towards getting faster internet access in homes.

I know where I'd rather be, and at the moment it isn't with ADSL.

[headbrace]

Aye, me lubs me NTL 1mb cable. NTL only give you one ip address, so you need to get some form of router going, be it a smoothwall, an airport basestation or a standard router