Port Forwarding with 98/ME? Need Help....

[Rotha]

Equipment:

I currently have two computers. One is a Win2K Prof box and the other a Win98/ME box. I have a DSL line, three NIC cards and a 10/100 MB Switch.

Problem:

I originally had the Win2K box attached to the DSL line. It had two of the NICs (one for the DSL, the other for the internal LAN). It runs a small web server and a few other basic apps. My 98/ME machine was on the internal network and through ICS had no problem with web access, ftp, etc. However, I've had a number of problems with games. Through Win2K's ICS, I was able to configure some of the ports to pass through to the internal machine. It seems that some games have very complicated networking (using both ranged UDP and TCP ports). While this might be possible with Win2K's ICS, it would not be worth the work IMO.

So, what I would like to do is switch the roles of the two computers. Firewall security is not a concern,
I just need a port forwarding utility. This way, my 98/ME machine would be on the internet and I would only have to forward a few ports (ex. port 80 fo my web server) to my Win2K box.

The problem is that 98/ME's ICS is not nearly as robust as Win2K's and does not offer port mapping. Anyone know of a good way around this? If there another piece of software that I can use that is cheap/free?

So, to sum it up: I want to use my Win98/ME machine that is attached to the internet as a pseudo-firewall and forward a small amount of ports to my Win2K machine. I understand networking - I already have all necessary equipment. Just need to know how to do it on a 98/ME machine.

Thanks in advance,

Rotha

 

[obenton]

NAT32 is not free, but cheap, and would work for w2k if you ever decided to reverse them again.

 

[ArkAoss]

linux router off a floppy disk, though it's a little more in deapth, but if you have a few spare nic's, a Pentium 100 w/32mb ram (everyone says you need less, but i suggest that amount) and a flopyp drive, you could have a linux router running in like an hour or so

 

[Wik]

Here is a program that works great with Win98 and ME. It supports port ranges also. I think you will like this one a lot.
icsconfiguration

 

[Rotha]

Wik:

Thanks for the link - but I can't seem to get it to come up.. any ideas?

 

[1KrazyFool]

You can forward ports via the registry. Microsoft even has a KB article on it if you search. Dig around the registry and search for "quake" or "ftp" etc. You'll find it.

 

[Wik]

Rotha, I just tried the link and it worked for me. Try it again and let me know if it still does not work. Or just go to www.practicallynetworked.com and look around under sharing to find icsconfiguration utility.