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October 12th, 2004 17:00
Whole house Prewired for networking - Which firewall?
I am wanting to use my new powerbook G4 which we just got to share printers, resources, and of course internet access. I think I am going to get the Linksys WRT54G with Superbooster (wireless for the Powerbook of course) since it sells for reasonable price on amazon.
Here's my question. I guess I first plug in the new router upstairs directly to the network drop that I used for my PC earlier, then I go from the router to the PC. After this is done I guess I can reconfigure the powerbook to run DHCP wirelessly to that connection?
Now, do I turn off the windows firewall to the XP PC and use the built in Linksys one? ; and do I completely leave the powerbook with no firewall? I have heard people doing all kinds of different things!
Any guidance or yes/no sure would be appreciated!
Cheers!
Dell Dimension 8100
P4 2.4MHz (Powerleap)
Windows XP Pro SP1
XP2 Bios
Asus Nvidia Geforce 4ti 4200 128Mb 8X AGP
1702FP Monitor
Western Digital 40G Master/Western Digital 120 Slave
Soundblaster LIVE 5.1
Pioneer DVD-R 105
Pyro Firewire Webcam
Logic Firewire Card OHCI
Canon ZR40 DV video camera
Canon powershot S300 digital camera
jwatt
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October 12th, 2004 18:00
Unless I've missed something, you should be able to connect the "Internet" side of the WRT54G to the cable modem, and the "LAN" side of the router to the switch. That would immediately allow everything on the LAN to receive an IP address from the Linksys.
There may be a wireless range issue with the WRT54G located in the laundry room. If so, you may need to locate the WRT54G more centrally to the locations where the wireless systems are. How difficult that would be depends on whether it's possible to remove the CAT5 run to the jack where the WRT54G is located and connect it to the modem instead. Another alternative would be a second wireless device set up as an "access point" closer to the wireless clients.
Regarding firewalls - the XP Service Pack 2 firewall provides configurable inbound protection. While the WRT54G's "NAT" feature will block inbound connection attempts to the LAN clients, a better choice for the XP system would be something like ZoneAlarm, which can be configured to block both inbound and outbound connection attempts, thereby catching anything on the XP system that tries to "call home".
I suspect that the G4 actually does have firewall protection, given that its OS is derived from FreeBSD. I don't know how Apple has implemented firewall features in OSX, though. Note that since the powerbook will be connected to the WRT54G, it will not receive any inbound connections from the Internet. OSX is much less susceptible to the worms and viruses that Windows systems are plagued with, because of the OS design, and the fact that the machine's not running on an Intel processor.
What a great setup! No crawling around to equip the house for networking!
(edit) How very odd - your reply was deleted, or else there's been a database glitch! Anyway, here's what I was attempting to say:
If we keep the wires and I plug it in, to be able to share the resources I still have to set up simple networking from the XP computer to be able to share the Dell's printer and the Dell's large harddrives, correct? I mean I guess that PB can just grab an IP everytime I plug in and then share the Dell's resources?
pwygant,
Yes, that's correct - but if the WRT54G and the Powerbook have enough range to reach each other, why go back to wired from the Powerbook? And if they don't, why not plug a Wireless Access Point into the dataport instead of the Powerbook?
Jim
Message Edited by jimw on 10-12-2004 12:58 PM