Networking Dial-up

[Ashley Weed]

I had no clue where to place this thread, so hopefully someone finds it..... I am in a misereable situation at college in the middle of nowhere. No form of DSL or cable is available, and dial-up is sparse - however, we can dial up on a campus net.

My dilema... I want to find out how to put 4 computers on a dial-up network on one phone line. I know it will have major lag, but at this point I don't care.

How do I do this the simple way? Can I just attach them via CAT-5 cable.. and they will just spontaneously work together.

If anyone can help me out... let me know the simplest way to do it... and what kind of hardware is needed. (I would like to keep it cheap.)

Thanks!

[Rickertsen2]

What operatign system are the computers running? If at least one of the computers has WinXP, you can use that computer to share the connection with the rest. In all of the computers, you will need a network card. You can buy these for like $9 or less. You will also need a hub or switch, preferrably a switch. This will cost about $15 to $20 for a 4 or 5 port model. The most expensive part is actally the cables, which are cat5 with RJ45 connectors. Connect all this together. hat's all you need as far as hardware. WinXP has built in connection sharing. i've never done it but know people who have. For details try searching http://microsoft.com .If you don't have winxp there are plenty of probs whic hwill do connection sharing. win2000 may also have this capability but i don't really remember. As far as other operaing systems go i really don't know enough to say much. I hope this helps.

[Ryan Albright]

You could even skip the hub and do it much cheaper then that. but then you sacrifice reliablility. It is called a bus topology. Think of all of the computer in one line as i explain this.Each computer has to have two computer cards and you run cat 5 from each computer to the next one and at the two end computers the last cat 5 wire goes into a termianotr then you ahve one computer on the netowrk on the internet then you share it with everyone else only catch one compuert goes down they all go down

[Joe Clohessy]

Do you think it would be cheaper to run a BUS topology? Really now... Hed have to spend close to 25 bucks in extra material. Even if the hun or switch is 30 bucks its worth the 5 extra bucks than having to keep on the first 3 machines in order to use the 4th machine... Theres also somting called WinProxy... Little tough for me to start going but that was 3 years ago and i wasnt as far advanced as i am today. Well Have fun with your project. :-)

[Madison]

Originally posted by Joe Clohessy
Do you think it would be cheaper to run a BUS topology? Really now... Hed have to spend close to 25 bucks in extra material. Even if the hun or switch is 30 bucks its worth the 5 extra bucks than having to keep on the first 3 machines in order to use the 4th machine... Theres also somting called WinProxy... Little tough for me to start going but that was 3 years ago and i wasnt as far advanced as i am today. Well Have fun with your project. :-)

Wow, that was gender inappropriate, condescending, and useless.

Congratulations.

Ashley -- for what it's worth, we tried this here at home several years ago but never got it to work to our satisfaction. We tried the WinProxy software mentioned above.

[Ryan Albright]

Have you looked on ebay, a bus topolgy is alot cheaper then going to buy a hub if you get it on ebay. I mean i would go for the hub i was just giving a suggestion. YOu need to chill out and bus topolgy would come out cheaper then a hub but again like i said its un-relable i would still go for the hub.

[Ian W.]

The best bet, if you have the money, is to buy an older home router/firewall. The older versions have WAN ports as well as Serial Ports, for an external modem. They also have 4 RJ-45 jacks.

Setup is easy, Cat5 into NIC (Network Interface Card) on the computer end, and into an RJ-45 jack on the router/firewall end. External modem into phone jack and the Serial Port on the router/firewall. Power adaptor into wall and router/firewall (that one's obvious, but I figure why not ). Hardware setup complete, moving onto software...

Go to any computer, boot it up. Go to IE, and type in "http://192.168.0.1", minus the quotes. Username + password should be either blank or "admin" (check the literature, it'll tell you). There will be a GUI that should be easy to navigate and add in the correct dialup information. Save all the settings, follow on screen instructions. Software done .

Once that's completed, depending on how you set it up, you'll be able to go online either by trying to connect to the internet (open IE, log onto AIM, etc), or possibly by logging back into the router/firewall and forcing it to go online (if you want 100% control of when it goes online, if you use that line for calls as well).

That's the proper solution to your problem, and I've had it work in my house for a while no problem, but it's probably the most expensive, and you need what, may now be, obsolete hardware. I'd look into both ways though, and figure out which one will work best for you.

[Ian W.]

Originally posted by Ryan_team710
Have you looked on ebay, a bus topolgy is alot cheaper then going to buy a hub if you get it on ebay. I mean i would go for the hub i was just giving a suggestion. YOu need to chill out and bus topolgy would come out cheaper then a hub but again like i said its un-relable i would still go for the hub.

Hubs and switches are dirt cheap, if not free now. NICs are still costing money, although not much. Therefore, a free hub/switch is less money than a not-free NIC. How does Bus-Topology work better when considering money? Star Topology easily beats Bus Topology in just about every application today, unless you're still using Coaxial Cable as a medium (and if you are, please, do yourself a favor and rewire your house).

For those who don't know, Star Topology is when everything comes out from a central node, such as a hub/switch. Expanded Star Topology is when a cable is split multiple times as it goes from the POP (Point of Presense, where the WAN connection in your house/business/etc is) to your computer. Almost, if not, every modern company uses Expanded Star Topology today, as it's very reliable, easy to diagnose problems, and the straight down the cheapest way to do it. Usually, you can follow what the large corporations do if you need money, because they always try to save as much money as they can.

[Gadget470]

The way I see this to be done is:

Computers: V W X Y Z
Switch: S

V holds the dial up connection.

V must ALWAYS be on for W X Y Z to work

V W X Y Z have NIC cards

V's NIC connects via Ethernet to S's WAN port (if applicable).

W X Y Z connect via Ethernet to S's LAN ports.

W X Y Z all share V's capabilities and all can be contact eachother.

S must have an internal NAT for this to work. If you can't find a switch w/ a NAT, get a router. and replace Switch S, with Router S.


If this doesn't make sense, I'll rewrite it better later.

[Ryan Albright]

ok she asked about different ways to networki gave her my point of view. I am sorry that i even spoke you guys dont have to rip me apart for it i gave my opinion and i see its not wanted so i will just shut up

[josh_johnson]

I set up a network similar to what Gadget described and it worked well, the advantages of this over bus topology include:

*Being more reliable (If one connection goes down it doesn't break the connection to the other computers, unless of course that computer is the one with the dial-up coming into it)

*Requires only one NIC per computer (I believe bus topology requires two on any except the ends, however it has the added cost of the hub, switched, or router)

There are probably more advantages as well as disadvantages that I can not think of now.

With Windows XP you can set up the computer with the dial-up to shape the connection and even to automatically dial-up if another computer tries to access the internet.

[Ashley Weed]

Wow.. thanks for all the replies... sorry it has taken me so long to get back to everyone, but I came home today - so I can finally get freely online.


Gadget - I think I understand yours the best so far... I am pretty well informed with computers - on what I know. On things I don't know I am pretty dense. Make sure I get this right... Computer 1 has to be online all the time?

Then... computer ABC will all have to run to the master computer (1) via CAT-5 cables?
... then it is all set up through software (all are XP OS's).....

now... for the hub/switch, I am completely clueless.... I went to Staples and Best Buy today to try and get some help... and both of them turned me away by saying "You can not share a dial-up line between computers." So, if you'd be so kind - where do I find one of these 'switches'?

Thanks again everyone!

[Greg Perkins]

well for a fact i know u can share an dial up connection between different computers...mainly for the fact that i've done it at my freinds house. all u would need to purchase is a network hub...simply lets u plug in multiple cat 5 cables. so this is the shopping list...


4-5 cat5 cables with the rj45 connectors...
network hub


its all in the dialup options..

[Scott L.]

You can go the simple and cheap route as follows:
Computer W running winXP has Internet
Computers W,X,Y, and Z each connect to the HUB through Cat.5 cables.
Cost ~$32 - $37.

Or the most reliable way(in my view), but probably the most expensive, is to use a barricade style router in place of the HUB. Computers connect as follows:
Computers W,X,Y,Z connect to the router using Cat. 5 cable.
The modem (External) connects directly to the router via. a serial port on the router.
Cost ~$110 - $140.
This is the system that I use at home and at College and it works great.
Recommended Equipment for this option:
USR-8022 Wireless Barricade Router ~$60 - $80.
Actiontec External 56k V.92 Modem ~$50.
Cat. 5 Cable ~10.
This equipment can be ordered on-line at www.tigerdirect.com
or mail-ordered from the same site.

You can also purchase wireless network cards to connect to the router in place of the Cat. 5 Cable.

Hope this helps.