Two computers networked, both win98 SE, want to share internet access 1

[Chemakill]

I got two computers on a network both using Win98 SE. I want to set it up so that if one is connected (standard telephone dial up) the other will recognize this and let me browse/dl/whatever, and if one isn't already connected it will know to dial up. I have them both running TCP/IP and IPX/SPX on the network, and TCP/IP for dial up (as if there were another option). I never took out IPX/SPX coz I'm not sure if I need it to accomplish this. They both dial up to the same ISP, but they do have completely different modems. Any ideas? The ultimate goal would be to accomplish this without requiring any input at all from the user after setup (family machines. don't go there.). The machines are both set up to automatically dial and log in. As of now I have no firewall software; the security is limited to win98/IE5.5's security, and yes I realize how weak that is, but since I'm not online for hours at a time and I know enough to keep my system reasonably secure, I'm not too worried.

 

[fenris]

If you have a network where you can see the other computer in network neighborhood then you have a main target that Script kiddies look for, namely port 139 wide open. To see how vulnerable you are try going to

http://www.grc.com

and running the tests that are there. You will need a good firewall, I suggest zonealarm from

http://www.zonelabs.com.

Remember it doesn't take more then an hour for your machine to be comprimised if someone wants to.As far as ipx goes you don't need it unless you are playing games that require this protocol.

There is a program in win98SE that is called ICS (internet connection sharing) and I am pretty sure that it can do what you want it to. You simply install it on the machine that you want to be the dialer. To install ICS go to the control panel/add remove software and goto the window tab and search around in there. You should find it there.

From there on the other machine in its tcp/ip settings, you would simply add the ip address of the other computer as a gateway.

 

[AndyHo]

A nice piece of software for you situation can be downloaded free from Deerfield. It is called Wingate and I have made much use of it over the last 2 years. For two users it can be installed free of charge and its clever use of cache speeds up internet use.

AndyHo

 

[Chemakill]

Sorry for the wait on responding, but fenris: That would requiring completely reconfiguring every time one computer logged off the internet, especially if the other wanted to go on. andyho: gotta website for that?

 

[fenris]

Chemakill, what do you mean reconfiguring? either using wingate, or ICS that is built into win98se you will have to designate one of the machines as a gateway(ie it is the only computer allowed to connect to the internet via the dialup line) otherwise what is the point of have such a setup.

If the gateway logged off then that would be a problem. I believe that both wingate and ICS support dial on demand, ie when the other computer wanted to go online it would send a message to your gateway computer and tell it "I want online!" and the gateway would dialup and everything would be fine. The person using the gateway computer should not notice a significate slow down on their machine. But they may.

 

[Chemakill]

But that's not what I want to do. I want it set up so that any computer can just dial up, and so long as it is connected, the other computer uses it as a gateway for access. Then, after it disconnects, both are disconnected and it is no longer used as a gateway, so that the other one can dial up and IT is used as a gateway for the duration of the connection. See why I couldn't find a way to do this?

 

[fenris]

I am not sure how it would work in that case, but I would imagine that you would have to install wingate or ICS on both machines and set gateways of these machines to each other.

eg:

machine A: ip: 192.168.0.1
gateway: 192.168.0.2

machine b: ip: 192.168.0.2
gateway: 192.168.0.1


I am not sure that this would work, but then again you don't know till you try


Good luck, let us know if this works....

 

[Nilsen]

After reading these posts, I thought I'd go check out

http://www.grc.com

as I have two computers networked together with file sharing open (all shared drives are password protected, which will slow down hacking, but I'm sure will not prevent it). I was shocked when I found how much info came back when I had file sharing on, internet sharing off. When I turned internet sharing back on, the site brought back a reading of stealth mode for the netbios reading. Is there some type of pseudo firewall protection that MS put into their internet sharing add on, or did that change it just enough to confuse the grc software?

Am I getting a little false security?

Any thoughts?

 

[fenris]

Internet sharing, that sounds interesting but I would advise against using it even with password protection. I mentioned above a free firewall called zonealarm. It works very well. I don't really need it on my win boxes anymore because they live behind a linux firewall. I still have it install though, because it tells me when software is trying to connect to the internet. I found that power point, everyonce in a while tries to connect to the internet. But ZA is a decent firewall that is good enough for windows.

The problem with having open shares but password protected is that a program can be used to basically kill the tcp/ip stack of a windows box. Also there are programs out there that scan a network looking for machines with shares. I have DSL and I was curious as to what I might find. So I scanned a small portion of the network. Suffice it to say the rumors that there are a lot of people with highspeed connections are virtually naked out there on the wilds of the internet!

As far as I am concerned, every one should have some sort of firewalling software!

 

[Guest_imported]

just upgrade to windows ME it makes ICS dummy proof!!!

 

[Karl Blessing]

yea jumbo, and carries alot of other bad stuff with it, (least in my experience) [sig]<p>Karl<br><a href=mailto:kb244@kb244.com>kb244@kb244.com</a><br><a href=

http://kb244.com>

</a><br>Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)<br>

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151

[/sig]

 

[Sartan]

Hey Wazzap guys? Anyways I need a little bit of help, If you could.
I have two computers, both running One running win98SE the other regular win98, which I plan to upgrade soon. I would like to share my internet connection, which is cable. Currently, I do not have a hub, so im just using the server computer with two NICs and a crossover cable to the other computer, with a NIC of its own. They are networked nicely, and I can download the harddrive of the other one, etc etc etc. I have also successfully set up TCP/IP on each computer, the Server having 192.168.0.1 and the other being 192.168.0.2. They can successfuly ping each other, play LAN games on the internet, and i have even succedded in running an IRCD on the host and connect them together. However, I have tried a myriad of programs to attempt to set up a gateway, proxy, routeing, or whatever newfangled ideas they call them nowadays. However, none of them seem to work, Im afraid. These programs don't detect each other at all. Im wondering if I can get a direct, step-to-step process where I can do this?

Sartan
Sartan@infrequency.net
General newbie and wannabe hacker

 

[JayBall]

FAO Sartan

Go to

http://www.grok.co.uk

and download Netproxy 3.6.
It will work on either version of windows and will allow you to share the connection without any problems, it also has a built in firewall which seems to work very well. Give it a try I have used it for the past three years without any problems.