Sharing Cable Modem

[aspen]

Whats the best way to share a cable connection?

I have a cheap linksys hub I could use but I'm not sure that thats the best way since my computer is set up as a web server and so incoming requests may not work right.

If I simply networked the other PC to this one though would I be able to use it that way? On the other one simply configure it to connect via a lan?

[Anarchos]

Get your server and have one ethernet card be for external connection -> cable modem and another card for the internal connection -> hub. It helps if the two cards have different names, so you can tell them apart. Then connect the other computer to the hub. Your web server will still work. Software-wise I believe you can use Internet Connection Sharing on the other computer to get it to work correctly.

[micmar]

What Anarchos said should do the trick. Using a hub is a much more reliable way of networking two PC's than using a crossover cable direct from PC to PC.

[thewitt]

I would add a Router to the configuration, and get the added ability to control the traffic coming into your network. If you are using one of your computers as a web server, I suspect you want to limit the traffic into your existing network to only that system.

NAT routing will work. You can get a cheap cable router from Linksys or others for $150.

I actually added a wireless NAT router to my network and now share a cable connection with 5 wireless and three wired PCs. The incoming connections are port-mapped to my web server. There are no other ways into my network, so my other systems are all very secure.

All the outgoing connections look like they are coming from the same physical port - as the NAT router hides my private network from the Internet.

-t

[damicatz]

If you are talking about a Linksys Router you can configure it to let your computer run as a server. In mine you go into advanced options and click on forwarding and tell it which ports you want to go to the server. I think you can also set your computer as the DMZ which is also in Advanced Options.