@home and Local Networking

[Woodie]

Boy, @home sure made a mess of things at your place! (referring to the IP addresses, subnets, etc..)

Plain old ugly.

Somebody said it already, but get them to give you 3 ip addresses on the same subnet! It shouldn't be this hard.

--Woodie

 

[Tallgeese]

First: Sorry for the long post, but thought it might shed some light.
Second: Not sure we've got all the addresses we need and that some numbers haven't been transposed. Of course, if they ARE correct, whoever is engineering for @Home in this area should be taken out and flogged publicly.

<< I thought that you were talkin about that 3com router/gateway that takes the IP you have and makes several new ones... But if thats not the case then i have already tried that and the problem is that me being the Avid gamer like to play games on my LAN so one IP would not do the Job. >>

I usually approach my designs by thinking long and hard about this: public v. private (or internal v. external). This design approach is dependent not only on a network's physical layout, but PRIMARILY on the logical layout (especially when dealing with VLANs and QOS)

Think about your LAN like this:

Here is how your LAN is connected PHYSICALLY to the Internet:

public
======= INTERNET
=======
======= @home backbone 24.112.196.1?
=======
======= cable modem ?
=======
######## hub
########
######## Machine 1 24.112.169.119
######## Machine 2 24.112.198.38
######## Machine 3 ?
private

The &quot;=&quot;s indicate what should be public space. The &quot;#&quot;s indicate what should be private space.

At first glance, since all your machines are on the same hub, it would make sense that any traffic between them would stay within the hub (private demarc point).

But LOGICALLY, your LAN is connected like this:

public
======= INTERNET
=======
===#### @home backbone 24.112.196.1?
===####
===#### cable modem ?
===####
######## hub
########
######## Machine 1 24.112.169.119
######## Machine 2 24.112.198.38
######## Machine 3 ?
private

OVERLAP LIKE THIS IS B-A-D

Essentially, EVERYTHING that you WANT to be treated as private traffic (ie: not traversing into public space) is in fact travelling like a mofo through public space. In effect, everything on your LAN is being publicicized (advertised on the Web). That means ALL YOUR LAN (ARE BELONG TO US...sorry, couldn't resist) traffic is being advertised on the Web, where it can easily be packet-sniffed, eavesdropped, logged, etc.

Ideally, you want to separate what traffic should be kept private from what traffic should be made public. To accomplish this, here is how your LAN should be connected both PHYSICALLY and LOGICALLY:

public
======= INTERNET
=======
======= @home backbone 24.112.196.1?
=======
======= cable modem ?
=======
===#### ROUTER 24.112.169?.119
########
######## hub
########
######## Machine 1
######## Machine 2 10.0.0.0 or other
######## Machine 3 private addressing
private

**Overlap like this is GOOD, since it occurs in a device designed to handle it appropriately.

Conclusion: People have already mentioned some important drawbacks/limitations of NAT routers, especially when trying to use applications that use port ranges or random port assignments to transmit/receive data. And most (if not all) of the routers in the price range we have been discussing are normally limited to only one DMZ host (fully advertised) or only one forwarding target per port or range. Which can be a drawback for Internet gaming from multiple machines. But none of that would hinder your ability at all to play LAN games (assuming you really mean &quot;LAN&quot; games--restricted to players on your own LAN).

Hope this helps.

 

[Crabapple]

thanks.... that really helped..... when i called @home tech support the people were not friendly at all ... when i mentioned that i could not share printers or files because they said that they dont even support local networking. ... they just sell you the extra ip and you gotta figure out what to do with it (go figure). I tried simply manually configuring my computers to have the same subnet and it worked.... Thanks a bunch for all your help.....

As for rogers@home... as soon as another affordable high speed Internet access comes along... Im leavin @home... When they offer a service they should at least support it and adapt to customer needs.

(FSCK them) :frown:

 

[konichiwa]

I still don't understand why you refuse to get a router. You can game behind a router, but...if you really don't want one, I'm not gonna try to convince you.

 

[Iron Woode]

I am on Rogers@home and was talking with tech support and they told me i should get a router/firewall for my home network. He even recommended Freesco. I then told him i was running freesco and that it was great. He said they really don't care if you are running a router, as long as the router isn't causing you problems that you are blaming Rogers for.

 

[Xanathar]

Simply add static arp entries to all of your machines, it will clean up your problem quickly. You may also need to assign a static route for the &quot;remote&quot; machines to be the local interface of the local machine.

 

[Crabapple]

I like to play online games with other people online but also with my room-mate in the same house.
If a router can supply 2 IP's then someone tell me where to get one.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Ok all, here's the scoop on getting ip's from @Home. No they will NOT give you multiple ip's on the same subnet. They don't GIVE you anything. When you sign up for additional IP's it grabs them randomly from a pool. In order to keep all subnets load balanced there is 'some' intelligence in the process: The DHCP servers report current assigned IP's in each subnet. If all subnets are close to balanced then it assigns you an IP from each net as you request them (ie first ip is A.B.C, the second will be A.B.D, third A.B.E etc until there are no more different sub's, then it will start over). If there is an 'imbalance' in subnets then it will assign you all the same until the imbalance is accounted for.

Here's the fix. Most areas are too sparsely populated for more than 2 or 3 subnets in a given area. Most cable companies allow 5 ip addresses per account. So what you do is sign up for all 5 ips at once. Then review the assigned ip's, find ones that match (either 2 or 3, however many you want) and keep those. Call @Home and disconnect ONLY the ones that didn't match.

That's what I had to do to get mine to match. Also, you can't drop an IP then sign up for a new one and keep doing it till it matches. The second you release an IP it's back at the TOP of the pool, not the bottom. That keeps the balancing scheme balanced. I tried that one too, but I just got reassigned the same IP I had just released.

Hope that sheds light and understanding on the farce that is @Home.