Fairly complex network, need some help

[Alex Marshall]

Hey all,

I'm going to be setting up a fairly complex network in my house because of
certain needs. Here's what's going to happen:

I have broadband internet. I'm going to set up one computer as a dedicated
firewall / server computer, call it Firewall. Firewall has two NICs, one
to
connect to the ISP (Net NIC), the other to connect to a WAN port on a
router
I own (LAN NIC). Connecting to the LAN ports on my router are the other 3
computers in my house: 2 desktops and a laptop (call these LAN group). I
want LAN Group to be able to play games / share files with each other, and
still get their internet access through the router, which in turn goes
through Firewall. Any ideas as to how i can set this up? Any help is
appreciated. TIA.

Alex Marshall

 

[Miles Baidack]

Alex:

Complex? This isn't complex, its actually quite normal and simple.

Why do you want to setup a computer as a firewall/server - is this
also your router? Get yourself a D-Link or Linksys DSL/Cable router,
plug in the computers and you will have everything you want: Internet
access for all and a local area network in your house. If you want to
use better equipment, pickup a ZyWall router and you can have better
security and a more stable connection to the Internet.

The router becomes your firewall masking your computers from direct
contact with others on the Internet. The outsode world only sees your
router and not the computers in back of it. If you use a computer as
your router it will be exposed to the nasties on the Internet.
Bummer...

HTH

Aloha,
Miles

 

[Alex Marshall]

That's actually already the way I have it. But I want to do this just as a
learning experience.

Alex Marshall

 

[Miles Baidack]

Alex:

Yikes! don't mess with success. If this is working for you leave it
alone; if you want to experiment do it with an entirely free-standing
network.

I can't guarantee this 100%, but if you start messing with your
current - working - setup I'm pretty sure your next post will start
something like this: I can't understand what happened, until yesterday
my network was working fine and then...

Don't go there.

Aloha,
Miles