GreasyP

Our house's router is fizzing out, and we need to get a new one. But me and my roommate are in disagreement here. He swears that when he used to run an internet cafe all eight computers were hooked up to a plain ol' hub sharing a DSL line and everything was hunky dory. But everything I know about networking (which isn't a ton, granted,) leads me to believe that you CANNOT share an internet connection like that. You need a router so that it can pick up the WAN connection and share it between the LAN computers, since you're only allowed one IP address on the WAN side by the ISP. How can a hub without routing capability share a cable internet connection? Wouldn't it by definition be a router then?

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Johnny Rotten

Pretty much what you said. Hub's don't connect directly to a broadband modem. They only connect multiple computers together. A router looks like a hub, except it can communicate with a modem to organize network address translation, which fools whoever is on the other side of your modem into thinking only one computer is connected to it.

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irseg

You need a router/gateway, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a separate box. You can even set up a Windows machine to do it with built-in Internet Connection Sharing software. It'd connect to the modem, and then to the hub with all the other computers. Or the DSL modem could have a built in router with an uplink port for an external hub.

LNCPapa

You can use a hub if you have as many IPs assigned to you as you have machines - for most cable users I know this will cost an additional $6/mo. So it can be done, but with a router/gateway/switch you only need one IP address leased.

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Mephisto2

Check out the thread http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...threadid=19220 I posted a few weeks ago.

This gives an overview of the differences between hubs, routers, proxy servers etc.

It may be of some help to you.

Mr Mephisto

G_Lock

What you are thinking is correct. The only way it would have worked, which I myself have done, is is the DSL company gave him unlimited IP addresses. I have set up a network like that, because the DSL company allowed multiple IPs from the same modem. In that case a hub would work just fine. The only advantage of that is price, otherwise it is not a good idea. With a router you get more security and less packet collisions. Not sure what his situation was, but I bet it was that the company allowed multiple IPs for him.

GreasyP

Sweet. Glad to know I'm not losing my mind. Now the only thing to decide is whether to tell him he's wrong or let him go buy a hub and make a fool of himself trying to set it up. Decisions...

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Dibbler

A friend of mine has his home set up with just a hub connecting 2 computers and a Xbox to a cable modem. The internet service uses dynamic IP addresses. Does this mean he can only use one device at a time on the internet or would it matter?

jfranco13

He should be able to use them all on the internet. What happens for me, and what I think is normal, is that the PC connected to your ISP has their address, and all the other PCs have 192.168.0.x addresses since they're sharing the connection.

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GreasyP

Well, now don't I look like an ass. He buys the hub, brings it home, I'm all ragging him that it's not going to work. I bet him a beer. He plugs it in. It works. If you can read this, it's still working as I type. Each of our computers is now directly connected to the internet, with its own global IP and everything. Only thing I can figure, Comcast must not be paying much attention to how many people are connecting from each house, even though they claim it's $5/month extra for each separate IP you want to connect after the first one. I figured they would watch that closely but I guess not.

Upside: Bittorrent works a lot faster now because we're not behind a router.
Downside: I'm out a beer.
Yeah, I can live with that.

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Johnny Rotten

Are you sure it's not a router/hub combo? Check the box extra careful.

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"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine

arcane

at the isp where i used to work we distributed dsl modems to our customers that had built in routers with only one port...so all you had to do was add a hub/switch and you could hook up as many as you have ports for

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GreasyP

I went to whatismyip.com and it reported the same IP I have locally with ipconfig, so I've got a direct connection, no router. Plus I got one of those Windows Message Alert popups before I got a chance to install BlackICE, so that wouldn't happen behind a router unless it was forwarding all ports to me for some reason. Go Comcast!

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LNCPapa

Wish Comcast would give me more IPs without a charge. Think they'll mind if I pull my 11 machines in this house outside of my gateway?

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No mercy for the bandwidth impaired

GreasyP

You never know until you try... Though who knows, maybe they'll just tack it on his bill next month. Emphasis on his bill.

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Dilbert1234567

you must have a router, you can plug a hub into a router through an uplink port on the router and share the internet through both the hub and the router but you must ahve the router conenceted to the modem through th WAN port on the router. (should be labeled WAN or 'internet')

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G_Lock

I knew that you could plug a hub into a router, and that the router would assign each of the comps plugged into the hub a 192.xxx... private IP. My only question too anyone is, how many IP's will the router support? I mean to be technical you could have an endless number of computers plugged into one of those standard 4 port routers. I mean say to plug a hub into each of the 4 router ports, and each hub has say 8 ports. And then you plug 7 computers plus another 8 port hub into the first 8 port hub, and so on. With that you could end up with SOOO many computers. So my question is, how many will the one router support. Lets just say, incase it helps, that it is a Linksys 4 port DSL/Cable modem Router. What do you think?

LNCPapa

Usually 253

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No mercy for the bandwidth impaired

G_Lock

Is this because standard IP addresses have xxx.xxx.xxx.1-255?
And if that's true, then why 253, and not 255? Just curious.

ratbastid

A few IPs are reserved for broadcast and network purposes.

Using a router is a better idea--for the very reason you discovered. Having your very own provider-assigned IP address exposes each machine to the dirty dirty nastiness of the Internet, requiring per-machine firewalling. Using a router with NAT blocks most of those things. And most NAT routers allow port forwarding and other ways of exposing only the services you want to the world at large.

nothingx

In your friend's defense, my cable modem actually has a router with DHCP server built into it. In other words, a hub would be sufficent for me. I still choose to use a router becuase it gets rid of the packet collision problem and because my router acts as a firewall. But anyway, yeah, your friend might have the same modem where he can get away with using a simple hub.

Nhanced1

Whats going on here is that, he is correct that the modem is plugged into the hub and that the hub is the one handeling the traffic. But the Modem itself is the router, because certian DSL modems in the cisco series have routing capabilities built in. So, the best possible answer is that the modem is a cisco 67x series and handles routing.

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Johnny Rotten

I knew I wasn't nutsI knew I wasn't nuts .

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GreasyP

It's not a cisco, it's a cheapo 3Com.

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