What's the difference between a Hub, a Switch and a Router?

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Leo,

I looked through the questions and answers here, but didn't quite find the answer I was looking for.

Here's what I have:
1 PC with ethernet network card and XP Pro,
1 printer,
2 laptops with wireless network cards and XP Pro,
1 Linksys Wireless Access Point Router w/ 4 Port Switch,
1 cable modem with service but no static IP address

Here's what I want:
To have the printer connected to the main PC, but to be accessable by the two laptops wirelessly. To have the PCs and laptops to be able to share files wirelessly. To have each computer use the cable internet connection separately.

Here's what I have now:
Cable modem connected to the Wireless Access Router. The Router connected to my PC via ethernet. The printer connected to the PC via USB. The separate internet connection works fine, but I can't share files back and forth between the machines, nor can I add the printer connected to my PC to my laptops so I can print wirelessly.

Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks!

I'm assuming all the computers can see the internet just fine.

You do need to make sure you have File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks installed, as well as Client for Microsoft Networks, both of which are part of the network connection configuration. You also want to have the XP firewall turned *off* (your router is providing that functionality).

And then, of course, make sure that the resources you want to share have actually been shared out (i.e. on the desktop with the printer, make sure the printer has, in fact, been shared).

Those are the top items that come to mind.

Hi Leo.

Great site and very informative and very quick with your responses!

Here is my situation: I want to host 2 websites. One on a Linux box and the other using Windows SBS 2003. I have 1 static IP from my ISP. I have a Netgear 4 port router. At the present time I am running 1 website on the Linux box on port 80. I want to add the other site on the Windows SBS 2003. Is this possible with the set up I have now? Can I use the static IP that I have now and just do port forwarding and use the same domain name that I have been assigned? I want to try do this without having to buy a hub and pay for another domain name?

Thanks for any help!

There needs to be some way to identify which web traffic is supposed to go to which of the two servers. Port 80 is, of course, the default for web traffic, and you have it configured to go to the Linux box. You *could* configure the Windows box to put the web server on a different port (say 8080), and then used the router to send that traffic to the correct box. But that does mean that URLs would looke like:

http://whatever/page.html - for your linux webserver
http://whatever:8080/page.html - for the windows web server

If you can live with that, you're done. If not ... I can't think of a solution off-hand that doesn't involve just getting another IP address.

Thanks Leo! I can live with having to enter the port number, but am having some difficulty in getting that to work, I believe I have something configured wrong in Windows setup.

For web connections in windows, wouldn't I use all my the IP settings that my ISP assigned me, such as DNS, and their gateway?

I guess I'll keep working the issue, at least now I do know that's it's doable.

Thanks again

Maybe :-). It often depends on the router as well. In my case gateway and dns settings for windows are the router, and then *it*, in turn, has my ISP's settings. Also in my case my computers are picking that up automatically when they get their IP address from the router.

But your milage may vary.

Thanks Leo,

I have decided to get another IP, I think that's going to be the easiest way to configure the servers :)

Thanks for all your help, this really is a great site!

Hi Leo
In our area broadband is only a dream. I already have my primary PC set up as a server with a wireless PCI card, and my wifes laptop with a wireless PCMCIA card is able to share my POTS dail-up internet connection. I want to connect a 3rd computer for my kids. Is it possible to simply add another wireless PCI card to the 3rd computer without introducing conflicts or requiring the aid of a router? Also, whenever I start shopping for a router, they all seem to specify a broadband connection and none mention compatability with dail-up. Can these routers be used with dail-up also?

I'm sure there are routers out there that can handle POTS (often as a backup to a high-speed connection) but they're not going to be cheap.

A couple of things come to mind: I've not had a lot of experience with an "ad hoc" network (which is what what you're setting up without an access point), but I *beleive* three is a workable number. I'd be tempted to try it.

Another thought is to go ahead and get that broadband router with wireless access point (or just get a wireless access point), and connect it to the ethernet connection of one of your computers (ignoring the broadband component)... perhaps the most centrally located one. The others would use their wireless cards in the same way (though no longer in ad-hoc mode). One computer could still dial out and share its POTS internet connection, and the rest could be connected wirelessly. There might be a configuration issue or two (such as probably needing to turn off DHCP on the router/access point so as not to conflict with the same service provided by Internet Connection Sharing) but in principle this should work ok.

Good luck!

I have one computer on broadband. I am acquiring a laptop next week. Can I simply unplug from the modem and plug the other in and get the help line to set up the other one. Then I could use either computer on line at will if take the troouble to plug and unplug. Will this work?
Bob

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