Internet Sharing

With more than one PC in the house, you will most likely want to share the internet connection. If the connection is though a cable or DSL modem, the advantage in sharing is even better (there is actually enough bandwidth to share!). Obviously you need to network your PC's to do this, but that alone will not do it.

Part of the problem is that most MSO's today only give you one IP address with the cable modem service. They normally want you to pay more to get more IP addresses. Or may actually have a "rule" against it in the service agreement.

Another part of the problem is that most cable modems today are just plain bridges, with no routing capabilities. So in order to use more than one IP address on your local LAN, you need some address translation (e.g. NAT).

Read more about this in the following articles. See also the "Internet Sharing" section in the Links database.

• Cheap and Easy sharing using Windows 98 SE (or later). Minimal setup with adequate security for most users.
• NAT, Firewall and Proxy explained. This article explains the concepts and some of the popular software implementations.
• Hardware NAT/Firewall is the high-end setup, where the routing functions are put in place by separate boxes.

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