Wired + Wireless Internet Sharing of Dial-up Internet Access 1

[ManaKnight]

Hi guys, I sure hope someone can help.

I'm trying to set up a customer's computer to share it's dial-up internet access to ONE ethernet computer and 2 wireless computers.

They had a netgear wireless and wired router. I downgraded the firmware to make the router function as a switch (per the instructions of netgear support) so they would go through the main computer's ICS, using it as the gateway. This is because they did not have cable or DSL; they are sharing dial-up.

We switched from this router because we could not get into the configuration utility (at 192.168.0.1) after 5-10 minutes of powering it on! To me, this sounds like a hardware problem within the router.

We switched to an access point after this, and we are not sure how to go from here.

 

[J741]

When you use the Internet Connection Sharing Wizard from Windows XP, it asks a few questions such as what network adaptor is connected to the internet, and what network adpator is to be used for internet connection sharing. Once selected, it basically sets up a simplified DHCP server, NAT server, and DNS proxy on the network adaptor which has been selected to provide shared internet access.

Now problems occur if you have more than 1 DHCP server on a TCP/IP based network. Such a situation occurs if you have the Internet Connection Sharing services running on a network adaptor which is connected to a LAN port on a common brodband internet router, as the router provides DHCP services on the LAN ports.

One way to resolve this issue is to turn off the DHCP functions of the router so that they do not conflict with the DHCP functions of the Internet Sharing services. To do this you will need to access the router's configuration via it's IP address. This may be dificult if the router's IP address is unknown (such as can result it the router obtains it's IP address from the DHCP services of the computer providing Internet Connection Sharing). So I suggest connecting the router to only one computer which is not configured to share internet access, turning the router off and then back on, release and renew the IP address on the computer to which it is attached, and checking the IP address of the 'Gateway' in the computer's DHCP assigned IP configuration. This 'gateway' address will be the IP address of the router, and you should then be able to configure the router as needed (with a static congfiguration / LAN IP address and DHCP disabled) before re-attaching it to the computer which provides shared internet access.

Another way to resolve this is to connect the network adpator which is providing Internet Connection Sharing functions to the WAN port on the router, effectively cascading NAT services (which will cuase problems with any file and printer sharing to or from the PC which is providing Internet Connection sharing).

Yet another way to resolve this is to connect the network adaptor which is providing Internet Connection Sharing to a standard network HUB or network switch, and then connect each computer or wireless access point to the HUB or switch.

Hope this information clears things up for you.

- James.

 

[ManaKnight]

Thanks a ton James!

I had turned off the DHCP server on the router in the 5-10 minutes I had access to it, but the problem still remained. I figure it must be a hardware malfunction.

So we've since changed to a wireless access point, joined with a hub.

The AP has two ports, one for a wired PC and one for an internet connection (or hub, or serving computer, etc.) The hub is a regular wired hub.

I'm considering configuring the AP in "Wi-Fi" mode (the other option is "multimedia" or "WhiteCap") and plugging it into the hub through the uplink port on the AP. Think this will fly?

Again, thanks for your assistance.

 

[J741]

The fact that the wireless access point has 2 ports, one for an internet connection, tells me that it's not just a basic access point, but may be a wireless router. If this is in fact the case, the same situation applies as if it were just a standard wired broadband internet router. In this case you must disable it's DHCP server functions on the LAN port.

As you are using a HUB and a Wireless AP, i suggest not conencting the wireless AP, and only connecting the HUB and wired computer at first. Test the internet connection sharing with this configuration, then add the wireless AP and re-test with both the wired and wireless computers. This will simplify troubleshooting if something doesn't work as expected.

And as always, make sure you configure the wireless APs settings to enable at least basic 64-bit WEP encription or better (or WPA if both the AP and all wireless PCs support it). After all, wireless is _always_ a security risk, and security IS important, even if you don't think you have anything worth securing.

As for 'multimedia' or 'whitecap' mode for the wireless AP, I'm not really sure what they mean. Check the manufacturer's documentation (or help files) for more information on this. But I'm quite sure that 'WiFi mode' is the one you want.

- James.

 

[ManaKnight]

Okay, it is all set up and working- Thanks for the help James.

It's set in Wi-Fi mode, and even though it was unmarked, it was a Cirrus Logic Access Point (Bodega model) with seperate Netgear hub. It was only able to be configured through what I believe is a proprietary USB connector- type B on one end, and just crazy looking on the other (definitely not type A.) I also had to install Cirrus Logic's software (provided on CD, not found on their website.) Once plugged in, the computer installed drivers to use the "device" it then recognized as the access point, itself. It then reported it as a Local Area Connection, 10 mbps. I launched their software on the PC, and it read the details after a quick reboot of the AP.

I configured it as DHCP. It allotted IP addresses to the two wireless notebooks. I could not get them to use the internet connection without it. I tried using the AP's IP address as the gateway, and also the main serving computer's IP address; neither worked. Once DHCP was switched on, it had no trouble whatsoever. The wired computer and the main PC communicated without any problem, even before the AP issue was worked out.

As for the reason the customer called me out, he said that he had everything set up fine, and then it suddenly stopped working. His family thought it was an internet acceleration utility called "Turbo." I found no evidence of this; without any reformat, I simply plugged everything together and enabled DHCP on the two notebooks and AP. The serving computer and other wired PC are both manually enumerated, though.

As for the "Multimedia" or "WhiteCap" mode, all I found was profile setting in the software with some vaguely worded settings and a protocol in the network configuration panel for the network card, named "Cirrus Logic WhiteCap Protocol."

Hopefully that'll help someone else out Thanks again!