How To Build a Network

[apsinger]

How would you build a quick network? Two of our PC's have wireless cards and "borrow" internet connectivity from the neighbors. (Who don't mind). We have a centralized simple hub in the alarm panel. How would we set it up so we can share files between all of the PC's? Can we also have one pc with a wireless card plug back into the hub as a "internet connection" that could be used from the other pcs that don't have wireless cards? When the "source" pc was off, we could still share files between all of the other pcs, right? Pretty sure this is easy. Thanks for any thoughts.

[BipolarBill]

What alarm panel?

If all your wireless PCs are in range of the neighbor's wireless router, all you have to do is to set your common Workgroup name and share your folders/drives. If the neighbor turns off the router or anything goes wrong with it, you're out of luck until they address the problem. You are at their mercy.

Setting up wired connections is exceedingly troublesome when the Internet comes from a wireless source. If you want full control, you are going to have to pay and install your own router.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Setting up wired connections is exceedingly troublesome when the Internet comes from a wireless source.
Yes indeed, there are many ways to go wrong with this arrangement.

Can we also have one pc with a wireless card plug back into the hub as a "internet connection" that could be used from the other pcs that don't have wireless cards?
Yes, in Network Connections, right-click on the wireless connection, choose Properties, then the Advanced tab, and enable Internet Connection Sharing. You might require a cross-over cable to connect the connection sharing machine to the hub. A switch would be far preferable to a hub in a limited bandwidth situation like this because it directs traffic much more efficiently. A switch can usually be connected with either a cross-over or straight-through cable.

When the "source" pc was off, we could still share files between all of the other pcs, right?
This is where you will run into trouble because when you turn off the "source" (ICS) machine which distributes IP numbers to the other machines on the LAN, they will begin to default to APIPA (169.254.x.x) addresses, which wouldn't be so bad if they all did so at the same time but that won't happen.
To get around this, give all the client machines a static IP address in the 192.168.0.x range. Set Default Gateway to 192.168.0.1 and set the DNS to the OpenDNS numbers (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220).
Disable all power saving items like Standby and Hibernation on the ICS machine or internet access will go to sleep with it.
Also, be sure to use a good software firewall like Zone Alarm which supports ICS and protection for client machines.
The other thing to keep in mind is that your security is only as good as the level of encryption on the wireless connection. This is easy to forget when you are sitting at a wired machine.

Remember that you can only have ICS enabled on one machine in a network.

[cat6]

Setting aside the legal issue of using someone else connection (even if allows it, the neighbor is probably violating his TOS).

Since the origin has already a Router, you do not need to add the quirkiness of ICS. You can do the same arrangement with wire but use WinXP Pro Bridging capacity.

[G Ray88]

I would follow BipolarBill advice, you will have a less problems with your own router then using someone Else's.
Good Luck :eek:

[Sterling_Aug]

Since your IP address is: 66.156.3.135

Then I am guessing your neighbors ISP is: Bell South Net out of Atlanta:

http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl