Sharing the internet connection via Firewire

[Kougar]

Okay, I've beat myself over the head trying to figure this out and get it working. Any networking Pros out there that can either help me or tell me I'm trying something physically impossible (Short of writing my own tcp/ip OS drivers at least) would be appreciated!

I have a small nest of three (Soon to be four) machines running folding@home off in a back room. They are all running XP Pro or Home, with the main rig getting internet access via my wireless G network. Buying anymore $40 cards is out of the question, that money would be better spent turning all of those proposed $40 wifi cards into one new single fast computer and moving it beside the cable router! (I did breakdown and buy a Belkin 5-port switch off ebay for $6 shipped, but if I ever exceed 5 ports I'll need to know this trick again... and, it's simply bugging the heck out of me now!)

Anyway I have a cat5 crossover cable linking the wifi G connected comp to another, and sharing the internet through ICS. But now I've run out of ethernet ports/cards and also crossover cat5 cable. Well, both the wifi G machine and the third machine have IEEE 1394A ports, so I connected them that way.

I can get the computers to ping each other and talk to each other, even have been able to set up a little "mini" network between the two such as if I wanted to share files. But all I want to share is the internet connection off the one machine, and I just can't figure it out or find any guides to follow to share the internet connection over fireware. Any ideas, excluding buying more equipment? Or is this "as doable" as trying to fill my tiny bedroom up with half a dozen computers...

I even have a USB crossover cable, but I quickly gave up trying to even figure out how to work that one out short of using some kind of proprietary software pacakge. As far as I know none would share the internet connection anyway...

 

[krmarks]

Not a networking pro, but have you tried setting the tcp gateway for the non-wifi machines to the IP address of the wifi connected pc? I could be waaaay off on that, but I figured the wifi machine needs to act as a proxy for the other machines.

 

[Atheus]

You can ping over firewire already? Well that's a good start. You will have to set up routing or bridge the connections - I'm not sure how to do this as I only use windows boxes as clients, but I do know they have a 'route' command. Someone else (or a google search) will provide instructions.

But... why do you want to do this again? You have a 5 port switch, and one of your machines has a wireless card, connected to the main router, connected to the net. All you need to do is buy some straight-through cat 5 cable and connect the machines together through the switch, then set all the gateways to the address of the wireless box and use normal 'internet connection sharing'.

 

[Kougar]

Originally posted by: Atheus
You can ping over firewire already? Well that's a good start. You will have to set up routing or bridge the connections - I'm not sure how to do this as I only use windows boxes as clients, but I do know they have a 'route' command. Someone else (or a google search) will provide instructions.

But... why do you want to do this again? You have a 5 port switch, and one of your machines has a wireless card, connected to the main router, connected to the net. All you need to do is buy some straight-through cat 5 cable and connect the machines together through the switch, then set all the gateways to the address of the wireless box and use normal 'internet connection sharing'.

Thanks krmarks, I'd tried that! I manually set all of those fields to every possible combination I could think of before I gave up, because I kept wrecking my network settings on the wifi system and it would then cascade the rest offline with it...

Atheus, I tried that too!! Neither ICS nor network bridging any or all of the connections for either machine got them to work, most of the time it would cause the wifi Rig to suddenly ignore the wifi-card completely and try and grab a IP address from the networkless comp I had connected to it via firewire!! Which also would knock the entire "nest" offline until I re-set the old settings yet again.

I'm not sure when the switch will arrive, and I'm sure at the rate I seem to "save' computers I'm going to need a 100-port switch and a miniture fusion reactor within 5years... Daisy-chaining a bunch of firewire computers together to one computer with internet was appealing, and being able to do something very few can was also some incentive Well, at least until Vista rolls around, since IP over firewire support will be nixed...

I will try your exact suggestion again though to make sure I did in in the correct order before... Thank you both for the ideas

 

[JackMDS]

If already have somewhere a Router in your system and the host to be computer with the NIC and the Firewire is WinXP Pro. You probably can use WinXP Pro Bridging to Bridge the Firewire with the rest of the Network.

:sun:

BTW. you can find Wireless card for less than $20, http://shop2.outpost.com/template/onad/product_navigation/spot5/