Problem with hub..

I know that i have been a posting a few questions lately on networking.. And i have been RTFM so don't worry.. Ok here is my problem.. I just purchased a "NETWORK EVERYWHERE 5port fast ethernet network hub" made by Linksys.. I was planning on sharing my cable connection between this computer and my linux box... ok i plug in the hub , everything looks good , then i plug the ethernet cable from my cable modem into the hub and everything still looks fine.. both of my systems have ethernet cards in them and they are configured.. I power on both boxes and it seems like only one of them can access the internet at a time.. why is this ? Am i doing something wrong ? I power on my linux box when this one is already connected and it sais "unable to determine ip connection for eth0" connection failed.. So i did a dmesg | grep eth0 and it sais:
eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56]
eth0: link up
eth0: remaining active for wake-on-lan
Maybe i am doing something wron here , but the bottom line is that only one computer at a time can access the internet.. I'll continue to work on this problem myself until one of my fellow AOers decides to show his mind about this situation..

You are only givin one IP address from your ISP. You have two options:
a) Buy a router(linksys, d-link, netgear...etc) that can perform NAT for you. Nat takes one IP address and shares it out to a private range of IP addresses.
b) Setup one of your computers as a router and have it perform NAT.

A lot of cable companies set up thier boxes to only talk to 1 PC. If you want more you have to pay the cable company more money. To get around this I have a windows box with 2 NIC cards in it. One connects to my cable modem, the other connects to my hub. I then turned on the Windows connection sharing feature and now I can hook up as many devices to my hub as I want and the cable company only sees the one box hooked up to the cable modem.

There are other ways to do this but this is what I did and it has been working well for over a year.

Quote:

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rom your ISP. You have two options:You have two options:
a) Buy a router(linksys, d-link, netgear...etc) that can perform NAT for you. Nat takes one IP address and shares it out to a private range of IP addresses.

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I would buy a cable/dsl router. I have used my Linksys BEFSR41 (or whatever it is) for about a year now and it has worked great at sharing the connection with Linux and Windows. (will get around to hooking the Xbox up to it soon too)

Thank you all for your posts.. So unless i want to pay more money , is a hub generally a bad idea ?

Not A bad Idea Just bad for your use. Hubs are useful but for what you need a router would be the better choice. so go return the hub and get a router.

Yes, hubs are generally a bad idea for internet sharing...

There are exceptions:
- Such as was suggested you can connect one PC and have it NAT out to your other box(s)
- Or you can run some sort of server software solution - browsegate for example works well for running on the Windows box

Both of these things requires resourses from at least one of your systems to maintain the connections - a router does it without impacting either of your systems performance...

But hubs still have their weaknesses besides that too:
- most routers come with basic hardware firewalls, which adds a good layer of security to your systems (hubs do not)
- routers are bi-directional divices where as hubs are not - on larger networks and some high bandwith smaller networks, this will cause noticable latency (lagg) issues

To name some of the more basic reasons why I'd suggest using a router instead of a hub...

RRP

If you're looking for a good firewall solution and have an extra NIC available for your Linux box, you can use it for NAT and firewalling. It will negotiate the connection with your ISP, and act as a DHCP server for the machine(s) on your inside LAN. Combine it with webmin for managing the system, and you have a very effective solution.

Of course, if it's your practice to only be using one of the systems as a time, or if the Linux system is more of a fun machine that you don't want to lock down for a firewall, then the router solution is best.

The cheapest solution would be to add a second NIC card to your windows or linux box and use that as a router.

Your hub would get plugged into the other NIC card that's free.

But yeah, what you need is a router like what everyone says. wether it's a linux or windows box or a linksys cable/dsl router doesn't matter.