NAT or ICS ?

I am sharing my cable modem using Internet Connection Sharing in my windows 2003 server. I would like to know which is better...NAT or Internet Connection Sharing ? I am sharing the connection to 8 PCs.


Thanks
~Shuuro

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shuuro

I am sharing my cable modem using Internet Connection Sharing in my windows 2003 server. I would like to know which is better...NAT or Internet Connection Sharing ? I am sharing the connection to 8 PCs.


Thanks
~Shuuro

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NAT with the help of a router or hardware Firewall would be the best route in my opinion.

Without using hardware router, with Windows 2003 's routing does it make any change ? My actual problem is... I get huge packet loss if all the PCs are browsing at the same time. I guess this happens if someone is browsing porn sites ! Am I right ? How can I control other PCs in my LAN ? All other PCs are with win 98 SE.

What is the actual difference betweeb Internet Connection Sharing and NAT ?

Thanks
~Shuuro

You're probably better off getting a router/firewall, but NAT is the preferred method of the two. ICS limits your IP range to 192.168.0.x internally, with the ICS server 192.168.0.1. You should not use static IPs in ICS, since you cannot control the DHCP range. You should not use ICS in a domain environment (IE, only use your 2k3 as a file server). Basically, NAT gives you more flexibility.

you can get more info here:
http://www.ezlan.net/win2003.html

I doubt your packet loss is due specifically porn sites. You would expect systems to browse slower if they are sharing the same line.

Look into UltraVNC for remote control:
http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/

Midknyte is right about flexibilty. Basically ICS is a NAT in your computer. It's a software based Internet connection solution. The main difference is NAT routers have a DHCP server which elimates the need for Internet Connection Sharing (ICS).

The disadvantage of ICS:

1) The network card gets a forced an ip address of 192.168.0.x. This can be a problem depending on the network setup.
2) The ICS server has to be on. Also anytime you restart the computer which you may be loading software you'll effect the ICS clients.
3) There are firewall programs that are incombatible with ICS.
4) There must be two network adapters installed. One for the Internet connection and the other for the local area network.

The advantage of a NAT router it is like a basic firewall that protects your from inbound traffic on all of the computers on the local area network.

Thanks for your info friends. I was wondering which one to use... NAT or ICS ! Does it make any difference if I use NAT in my system using 'Routing and Remote Access Server' instead of ICS ? Ofcourse, a Hardware router is always better.

Thanks for those links Midknyte

~Shuuro