darlodge

What’s the best way to network 4 machines (2 x XP Pro, 2 x 98 SE) to make use of shared ADSL?

I am just about to have ADSL (via NTL) installed. I have 4 machines that need access to the Internet and want to share the bandwidth across all 4.

I was originally going to have a proxy box with a firewall (ISA Server?) installed to have all internet traffic going out of this box. But I thought that was slightly over kill for 4 machines!. My only real reason was to allow me to play with ISA server and this appeared to be the most secure

Will a small network hub (4 or 8 port), 4 NIC's and a few lengths of CAT5 and a decent firewall on each machine will be sufficient and secure enough?

Whilst the data on each machine is not that important to anyone else, I don’t want some little scrot to delete it from one of the systems.

Many thanks

Darren

DominicA

get an adsl router with secureNAt, this will provide some kind of firewall protection and allow you to use the internet connection thru all 4 pcs...

roadrunner

The ADSL DSL-504 router for £89 is unbelievable value. It has built-in 4 port 10/100 switch, NAT firewalling/packet filtering and DHCP Server.

darlodge

If I bought an ADSL router, would that enable the 4 machines to see each over the LAN for printer and file sharing?

Thanks
Darren

Scooby-Doo

Most have a 10/100 DHCP LAN built in so enable TCP/IP on all machines and set them to DHCP then you will have a full network with internet access. If the router does not have a modem built in you will also require an ethernet Modem. I find the Linksys products excellent for home use.

suba

you cant use the d-link DSL-504 coz the adsl is via cable. you need a ethernet-type adsl router like the vigor 2200E from seg or a netgear RP114.