• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Router vs. dedicated server PC

R

rw120555

Golden Member
I have an Intel Anypoint Home Phoneline Network. When I set it up 6 months ago, I used one PC as a dedicated always on server, i.e. DSL modem plugs into the PC and the PC provides internet access to all the other client machines. Since then, everything I've read says that a router is better. I have a few Qs about this:

* There is the obvious advantage that you don't need to have a pc that is always on, and that alone will probably make me make the switch. But, other than that, are there other advantages? Does internet access tend to be quicker or more reliable with a router? It seems to me like I get a lot of annoying pauses in my internet connection, but I don't know if that is related to my hardware setup or just the way that the DSL service is. I understand I won't need Microsoft's Internet Connect Sharing Software or its equivalent anymore -- is that a plus or doesn't it really matter?

* I get the impression that routers are more secure than PC servers. I am looking at Netgear's rp334, which has NAT (I don't know what that is, but I hear it is a security feature). My server PC has the firewall software that came with the Anypoint devices. Will the router provide enough security, or do I need to set up some sort of firewall on each PC?

Thanks for any tips. Networking isn't my forte, but if I can get an improved setup with a router with minimal fuss I'll be happy. RW
 
I have a P133 running Linux doing NAT for me and I have had ~600K/s (yes kilobyte) downloads, so the speed of the PC shouldn't matter too much although I have never used (nor would I) MS ICS.

I consider the extra control I have over my NAT box enough to not get a cheesy cable router.

* I get the impression that routers are more secure than PC servers.

Only because they can do less, there's still the chance of the router having security issues, it's happened before and it will happen again.

which has NAT (I don't know what that is, but I hear it is a security feature)

ICS is NAT, ICS is just really bad because you can't configure it at all.
 
NAT stands for Network Address Translation.

In a nutshell, it allows boxes with private IP's to access the internet.

Say your computer's IP is 192.168.0.100 ( private and non-routable).

You have a router that is performing NAT. It has one interface on the same network as your computer, say IP 192.168.0.1
The second interface has a public, routable IP address eg 64.87.231.6 ( just and example,heh)

Your computer sends a request for an object on the internet to the router. The router takes your private ip address, and translates it into it's public IP address. If you were to look at the logs of a web server that you visited, your IP would be logged as 64.87.231.6

This is nice, because
1) Your real IP is unkown
2) If you have only one public IP and many computers, they can all access the internet under the auspice of your router's public IP.

That's NAT (simplified)
ICS is a kind of NAT, but it's not very robust.
Routing and Remote Access in Win2k Server will do a decent NAT
The best (most robust) MS NAT is provided by Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA)

A hardware router will do robust NAT as well
 
Thanks for all the info. So, if I have a hardware router, do I need other security features too, e.g. put zonealarm on each pc? With my current setup, I just have a firewall on the server, if I switch to a router I'll need it on each pc? To further show my ignorance, what would a firewall do that NAT isn't?
 
NAT is a routing technique used to hide internal IP addresses mainly to conserve Internet routable IP addresses but it also adds a little security because it's harder to directly connect to NAT'd hosts.

A firewall is a system designed to protect the computers behind it, but with consumer products the two always get lumped together for marketing reasons.

To further show my ignorance, what would a firewall do that NAT isn't?

Real rule-based security by inspecting each packet for certain criteria.

For example, on one of my internal servers (I have ports forwarded from my Linux router to my internal boxes when I need connectivity to them from the Internet) I run a FTP server but since FTP is terribly insecure I don't want just anyone being able to connect to the FTP server so I have some firewall rules (in this case it's Linux 2.2 and ipchains) that only allow connections on port 21 (the FTP control port) from a few known OK IP addresses.

There is more, but a lot of different firewall packages have different feature-sets so it's hard to describe unless you know what you really want to do.

So, if I have a hardware router, do I need other security features too, e.g. put zonealarm on each pc?

Depends. I personally don't run any firewall software on my PCs, but that's because I run 99% Linux software. So much Windows software calls home and installs spyware it's a good idea to install some form of software firewall to protect you from the software on your PC.
 
Did not see anyone address printing.
Using XP, sharing DSL and setting up a Lan with one server is a snap and printer sharing is easy also.

I switched to a router with a Printer server port so that the Server computer did not have to stay on or the other computer was not affected by its operations.
But having trouble with the printer thru the router and don't know if I can get it to work at this point. this will make me dump the router, as the printer sharing is more important than the tempory nuisance by the computer shutting down.

 
I'm using a dedicated server. But when I bought it we still had dialup, and they don't make routers for dialup (well they do, but they're expensive).

Plus, a server does SETI WUs for me😀
 
as far as getting your router with the built in print server working, it's really easy. just install the software that came with the router for printing. it creates a port, for the smc products it's called smc100 by default. then go to the printers control panel and open the properties of the printer that is being shared by the router. under the ports tab, select the correct port (i.e. smc100).

if you changed the default internal ip address of the router then you need to use the configure port button in the ports tab to change it to the correct IP address.


that's it.
 
They may be cheesy, but they're definately easy.

True, but easy doesn't always equal better. Especially since the second you run into a problem you'll have no idea how to diagnose or fix it.

Also some of them do really stupid things, like a friend of mine has a Cisco DSL router that when doing DHCP doesn't hand out DNS server addresses so you have to input them manually on the clients. WTF is the point of using DHCP if you have to input something manually on the clients?

Taking some extra time and learning how something works instead of plugging something in and just hoping it works will always be to your advantage.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
They may be cheesy, but they're definately easy.

True, but easy doesn't always equal better. Especially since the second you run into a problem you'll have no idea how to diagnose or fix it.

Also some of them do really stupid things, like a friend of mine has a Cisco DSL router that when doing DHCP doesn't hand out DNS server addresses so you have to input them manually on the clients. WTF is the point of using DHCP if you have to input something manually on the clients?

Taking some extra time and learning how something works instead of plugging something in and just hoping it works will always be to your advantage.
Click to expand...

This may have just convinced me to go with a box instead of a router.

Now, I know linux can run in a pretty slow box by today's standards, but the one I have is a 486/dx 66 (or something very close to this). WIll this suffice?
 
I just replaced my dedicated PC server with a Netgear rp334 router. Maybe we are imagining things, but my wife and I both agree that the internet access seems much lot zippier now -- much less waiting around before you even see any indication that your clicks have been recognized. Of course, that may partially reflect the fact that we had a mediocre setup before -- the dedicated PC was a 450 mhz Pentium running the Internet Sharing Software that came with the Intel Anypoint cards. The rp334 was pretty expensive ($250) but had great reviews and has built-in Home PNA support so hopefully we made a good choice. Plus, we can put the old server PC to much better use in another location.

The only problem so far is that on my XP machine, "My Network Places" is incredibly slow in recognizing the other machines on the network. But, if I use the Mapping and Sharing software that came with the intel cards, I can map and access drives without any problems. Whether my kids weird chatting and file-sharing programs will still work ok remains to be seen.
 
I currently use a P133 with 48M for my NAT gateway and I get the full speed my cable can handle. Meaning it gives me ~30ms pings to some quake servers and I've had downloads up to 600K/s (before AT&T capped us to 200K/s). Before that it was a P60 and the speed was the same.

The 486 will be fine just doing NAT as long as you don't try to run X on it. You could even run basic www server (no scripts), ftp, etc servers as they're all not very CPU intensive and would be limited by the hard disk and network bandwidth.

I would assume the slowness rw120555 mentioned was either ICS or Windows, or both.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top