Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch

Ok here is my situation:
I have a cable modem and a 4 port switch. I want to share the cable internet through the switch to the three computers connected to it by plugging the ethernet coming out of the cable modem and into one port on the switch. Would I have to use the ICS software? I have a functionning network already, so would I have to change anything?

1. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
DJ Net2Infinity Jul-16-02 10:38 PM
In response to message 0

I suggest you consider buying a broadband router as it is simply plug and play. To use your switch, you will have to put a second network interface card in the pc that is gonna be the host. One card is connected to the modem and out of the other you connect to your switch and yes you have to run ICS in that case. Which means your host pc and the pc you want to use must both be on. If you bought a router which can be had for under $100, you only have to have that one machine on and in addition you are protected behind the firewall in the router.
I would get one broadband router that contains a 4 ports switch, and a print server, that way you can easily share your printer as well.

2. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
ikellen Jul-17-02 00:12 AM
In response to message 1

ok I get that but-
Couldn't I just plug the output of the cable modem into the switch and all computers could access the internet?

3. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
DJ Net2Infinity Jul-17-02 00:27 AM
In response to message 2

LAST EDITED ON Jul-17-02 AT 00:31 AM (EDT)

Nope because I am pretty sure your ISP only gives you one IP address, and if you used the switch like you want ... you would need an IP address for each machine. I am sure they would sell you additional IP addresses, but its much more cost effective to use a router. That way everyone else sees your outside ip address (the one your ISP provides you) , and you are behind the firewall with your private IP addresses.

4. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
ikellen Jul-17-02 06:56 PM
In response to message 3

Alright I get that I need a router. I had thought of that in the beginning because it has a firewall built in and DHCP to hand out IP's. Would my idea of plugging the output of the cable modem into one port of the router allow each computer plugged into that router to get internet access? Im just not too sure of the idea of a computer with two NIC's.

5. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
lbyard Jul-17-02 09:31 PM
In response to message 4

My turn. http://duxcw.com/faq/ics/waysshare.htm. Larry

6. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
ikellen Jul-17-02 10:09 PM
In response to message 5

Alright, If i understand this right, I would plug the ethernet output of my cable modem into the uplink of the router, and then plug the other computers in and they would have internet access? Im no network administrator so I'm looking for answers here.

7. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
lbyard Jul-17-02 10:39 PM
In response to message 6

LAST EDITED ON Jul-18-02 AT 02:24 AM (EDT)

The "uplink port" you refer to is not exactly an uplink port per say. Instead it is widely (pun intended) called a WAN (Wide Area Network) port. The Internet is a Wide Area Network. Your home network is a Local Area Network, or LAN. And uplink port is like any other Ethernet port on a hub or switch except it can crossover the Ethernet Receiver and Transmitter pins, see http://duxcw.com/faq/network/uplink.htm. It runs at the same speed as the normal ports. The WAN port is separated from the normal ports by the NAT (actually it is a little bitty computer inside of the router--you can think of a router as being similar to a small PC without disk drives or screen and two or more Ethernet adapters) described at http://duxcw.com/faq/ics/diffrout.htm and on many routers runs at 10 MHz, whereas the normal ports run at 100 MHz. The WAN port is associated with a router IP address that is usually received from the MODEM and service provider DHCP servers. The PCs on the routers get their IP addresses from the DHCP server in the router. A hub or switch isn’t assigned an IP address. They have lower-level Ethernet MAC addresses for their ports (as does the router) and relay stuff (packets) to and from devices that have IP addresses. In other words a router is an IP node on the Internet (the last one the Internet sees) and a hub or switch is not. You understand the rest of it correctly. Larry

8. RE: Sharing Cable Internet through hub/switch
ikellen Jul-18-02 00:59 AM
In response to message 7

Thanks alot larry-That answered my question exactly.