Hello all:
I've been out of the Linux "world" for a bit, however, I'm looking get back into the swing of things and have recently arranged to get a lower end computer (300Mhz PII/III) to complement my win 98 gaming machine.
In order to make this enterprise worthwhile, however, I need to share a DSL connection. I plan on using a hub switch or a router once I find out what the differences between these devices are. Hence my first question . . . what are the differences between these deveices and which one would be best for sharing a DSL (pppoe) connection between a windows and linux machine.
My second question is whether the use of any of these devices is detectable by my ISP?
Third question is are there any recommended models or brands for this type of project?
I know there is a PET on this, however, it seemed to be dealing with a set up other than what I am envisioning here (or I'm too messed up to understand what it was talking about). At any rate, any assistance would be eagerly recieved. Thanks in advance.
I am using this guy http://www.netgear.com/product_view....12&zrp=131 for my internet connection. It does the pppoe connection by itself, does firewalling (limited I guess), acts as a 4-port switch,DHCP, does automatic DynDNS and other stuff I am not using. It was like $50, but was worth. Can also do other connections that are not pppoe.
A hub is a device that allows you to share a network connection, by forwarding the packets. A switch is an intelligent hub, that detects priority of the packets and thus, provides less collisions between them and, thus, makes a better connection. A router, in a home environment, is a switch that also makes the connection to an ISP for you, and "routes" the packets to the internal hosts (your computers.)
As far as I know, the ISP can't detect it directly. However, if you have multiple computers connected to the net at the same time, they would see an increment in traffic. However, it would be hard to differentiate just a very busy box.
[quote author=ifred link=board=4;threadid=5059;start=0#50208 date=1032484895]
Hello all:
In order to make this enterprise worthwhile, however, I need to share a DSL connection.
[/quote]
Easy, you want NAT gateway to do the routing.
No. Not if you firewall a bit, or use an OS that cant be trojaned. Thats pretty much the extent needed to find out if there are more than one box getting net access on their pipe.My second question is whether the use of any of these devices is detectable by my ISP?
well, build yourself one is cheap if you got an old box. Otherwise, for less than $100 you can purchase a 4-port NAT gateway. The two brands I reccomend are Netgear and Linksys. D-Link aint too bad either.Third question is are there any recommended models or brands for this type of project?
If you want linux to do it, there are docs for sure at LDP. Otherwise if you want an OpenBSD gateway, that can be done in about an hour (via an ftp install). But that requires an extra box, which you may not have. IIRC the kernel requires a 386 or higher and 16MB ram. And you would need 2 NICs - LAN and WAN. System specs are identical to that Linux requires.I know there is a PET on this, however, it seemed to be dealing with a set up other than what I am envisioning here (or I'm too messed up to understand what it was talking about). At any rate, any assistance would be eagerly recieved. Thanks in advance.
[quote author=ifred link=board=4;threadid=5059;start=0#50208 date=1032484895]
I'm looking get back into the swing of things and have recently arranged to get a lower end computer (300Mhz PII/III) to complement my win 98 gaming machine.[/quote]
My router/gateway box is P233 so you can call it an ancient box then ...
I share my cable connection with the rest of the boxes at home. That's including my main desktop box, my this spare box at my other room, my wife's box and a few others.I need to share a DSL connection.
All can be used but depending on your budget, switch or switch/router is recommended.I plan on using a hub switch or a router once I find out what the differences between these devices are. Hence my first question . . . what are the differences between these deveices and which one would be best for sharing a DSL (pppoe) connection between a windows and linux machine.
HUB share the bandwidth. So let's say if you have 10 ports hub ( for easier sake, there is no such thing as 10 ports, they are only 4, 8, 16, 24 and so on ) and your hub runs at 10 MB. Then each port can only have 1 MB of data pass through if all 10 ports are in use.
SWITCH do not have that limitation as well as being more secure by hardware design. Switch will make a dedicated connection among two active ports. It's harder to sniff in swithced environment.
I haven't came across to one yet. Although it's technically possible, they have thousands of customers and they don't care if one use it and/or it's too much effort to prove it.My second question is whether the use of any of these devices is detectable by my ISP?
I would say use your old box as a gateway-router and do it as a project. It's easier than you think.Third question is are there any recommended models or brands for this type of project?
Thanks for the advice guys. I am hoping that a trip to future shop (I guess its the closest thing Canada has to a computing superstore) will let me know what the options are for this project. Hopefully I will be posting soon from my linux box.
1. The main difference between a hub and a switch is illustrated thusly:
Your box - boxA - sends a packet, addressed to boxB to a hub which is connected to 10 other boxes. The hub takes your packet and doesn't care who it's addressed to - it spits a copy of the packet out of every one of it's ports. It does this with EVERY packet it receives! It doesn't have enough smarts to say 'oh, it's only going to the guy on this one port'. This is an incredible waste of bandwidth, because it's sending packets out to 10 boxes that will do nothing but drop it anyway. Only boxB will pick up the packet.
If your boxA sends a packet addressed to boxB to a switch, the switch will consult a table it keeps to see which port boxB is connected to and forward the packet to that port ONLY. This is a MILLION times faster than a hub, and has security benefits as well, since it's much, much harder to 'sniff' across ports of a switch. Sniffing whoever you want on a hub is effortless, since you're actually getting a copy of every packet that's traversing the hub anyway. All you really have to do is go into promiscuous mode and grep for whatever you're looking for :-)
Happy hacking.
2. For the sake of completeness, a router's function is to connect different NETWORKS. The two above devices connect different MACHINES on the SAME network (though more and more switches are also doing routing - but this isn't really in the home market).
3. NAT, in most of our cases, is implemented on the same box as the router and firewall. Generally speaking, having two NIC's will make your box a router. Running 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/ipv4/ip_forward' will allow packets to pass through the router, and iptables will NAT those packets so it looks to your ISP as if you have only a single machine connected to their network. This is nice. :-)
The rest is an exercise to you, the reader. I recommend buying the second (red) edition of 'Linux Firewalls', which is a great all around security book as well as the definitive reference to iptables.
DISCLAIMER: All of what I've said is gross oversimplification. You still have a lot of reading to do if you're not too familiar with all this stuff.
good luck.
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