How are you gettting dynamic addresses for all these machines with only a modem?  The modem only has one address and the switch is nothing more than a glorified extetion cord, so to speak.

Yes you need a router to provide DHCP addressing a firewall protection.  I would personally give you print server a static address within you LAN.

www.homenethelp.com

 

Message Edited by jmwills on 01-15-2004 08:29 PM

Like he/she said, if you want multiple PCs to access the internet through 1 modem, you need a router. You can then enable DHCP and give each PC a local IP, creating a local area network (LAN) From there you can enable file and printer sharing, but the computers will need to be on in order for you to access them (or their printers)in any way.

A print server will hook your printer into your router/LAN and allow any computer to print at any time requardless of what is powered on.
My guess is that they'll be a lot of troubleshooting, =), especially if you've got different versions of Windows running all over. Good luck,though...

jmwills, you are correct. The IP is the same. So now my question is why do I need the router with my glorified extension cord? If I can setup IP address in my network then why would I need another piece of hardware. Why can't I just enable file and print sharing on all machines in my network without using a router. I have Zone Alarm running now as my firewall so I don't need it for that reason.

Your ISP gives you one IP Address, let's say 50.100.200.250.  Without a router, there is only one machine on your network that can use that address at any time for the purpose of internet access or file sharing.  You will get address confilct error messages if you set the netwrok adapters (NIC's) to Obtain An Address Automatically.  One machine will grab the one and only address and the others will not be able to communicate.  Now, they will be able to function as stand alone PC's just fine but that is all. 

The purpose of the router, such as the Linksys BEFSR41 (www.linksys.com) , is to provide DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol) which is the process of taking your one IP Adresss and turing that into as many as 254 additional addresses.  The router also provides NAT (Network Address Translation) which is the process of accepting or rejecting packets that are coming from the outside.  If the router can not match match an outside packet with an internal request, the packet is dropped.  Zone Alarm can not do that but does work from the inside to provide unwanted packets from leaving the netwrok to possibly open ports for suspicious packets to penetrate.  Without the router, your machines are wide open to port scanners if you enable File Sharing on a high speed line.

Any router, wired or wirless, will also include a 4 port switch so you can connect initially via wired ethernet to setup the router and then either go totally wireless or have some PC's remain wired.