Question about Switches/Networks

[Viper905]

Right so, almost all my network experience is with routers, and today I was setting up a friends network. He got a 5 port switch, and wanted to network his two pcs. So anyway, I plugged the cable modem into the first port (it had no wan port) and the other computers into the other two. Anyway, so both pcs have internet now, but when I went to check their ips, I noticed they both have an external ip, and they cant find each other on the network. So, basically I know nothing about switches, which should be obvious at this point. So will someone explain: a. if having two external ips is anything that would piss off his isp, and b. if its possible to have a lan setup with a switch and how.

[TheDude]

Without knowing what OS he uses or brands, models etc of switches or router...the best I can offer is to make sure youn run network setup on the PCs and check the routers software to make sure it is assigning ip addresses to the machines. If it's a linksys router you will need to tell it how many addresses you want, there is a setup screen for that. Maybe post some more info would help someone with ideas. I won't be online for the next couple of weeks. Most of the new switches are auto scensing, thus no wan port.

[Charles Wirth]

Basicly the cablemodem is assigning DHCP addresses to the machines that are connected to the switch (switches don't have DHCP or WAN port usually). This is how it works and will not upset a ISP. A lot of people connect this way including me. I do not use a firewall "router" with a wan port. I have a switch and my PC"s will get IP addresses from the cablemodem.

The switch does not have a wan port that means it will not assign DHCP addresses. Machine will be visible to the internet.

If you are sharing the machines and you have trouble seeing them try using the machine name in the address bar //viper905/C to access the machine, if it is sharing the drive. Everyone on the network can see the shared drive if you shared it without the $ on the end of the share name. This share name is common and can be discovered using dos commands.

You can get a cheap linksys firewall router and connect the WAN port to the cable modem and have it assign DHCP addressses. This would make internal networking run much better and would not be visible to everyone on the cablemodem. If you wanted to host a web server behind a the linksys router, you would need to activate port forwarding in the router to point port 80 to an IP addess that you assigned in your local network. This works with almost all other ports so you can run services and game servers (example) behind firewall router.