Some suggestions about dividing internet access to three boxes?
 

Hello

I have permanent connection with internet but I'd like to be able
to receive signal with three boxes. I tried to make it possible with
switch but the problem is that internet prov allows connection with only one MAC address. So, presumably the best choice would be standalone router?. It doesn't have to be wireless since I've got everything prepared for ethernet (cabling, places, no laptops).

If it is the best choice could You recommend some good router in a price range of 60$?.

I'd like also to know what would be a configuration of wires in a cable connecting box with router. Would it be different than
cable connecting box with box?( via net adapters of course).

As I can imagine one can program external IP adress and internal one in a router?. How usually is it done?. Can I do it with putty? (run with wine).

Cheers

Any simple wired router sold will work fine. You set it up to emulate the MAC you have the account setup to use. All should be done using standard ethernet cables. Now setup on the lan side depends on the defaults the router uses. Many use Class C address like 192.168.0.0/24 or 192.168.1.0/24. The docs on the router should tell you what it is using or when you login into the web interface to the router from a web browser you can see what it is using. But to do that you need to know the IP of the lan side of the router. Should be in the manual. For example if the router uses 192.168.1.1 as its IP and has DHCP setup from a range of 192.168.1.50 - 192.168.1.99 then you can setup all internal lan machines to get their own IP. If you wish to go static then set the first one to say IP = 192.168.1.100, Netmask = 255.255.255.0, Gateway = 192.168.1.1, and DNS = to ones the ISP provide or you may use the routers IP of 192.168.1.1 as the DNS value.

You could check with family or friends and see if they have an old wired router around that they may have upgraded to a wireless one.

Brian

Recently bought DLink DI-604 for something like 35 dollars (here in Moscow), because I was tired of 1 year old setup with MAC switching (depending on what computers are on and what are off) and proxying (but it worked! and costed much less, as I got an old hub for it for free). The thing I was tired of was not a bug in setup - but the need to manually tell laptop to switch from being primary computer to being secondary (don't tell about automatic pinging when I need to guess timing of Windows booting to ssh into Cygwin). Router has web interface with lots of Opera-Gecko-IE-friendly JavaScript (and NO telnet from inside LAN.. I think it is not right, but..). It can change its MAC (including entering it manually or copying it from your computer), you can configure it to use external DHCP or static address and to be internal DHCP - or work with static addresses. Surely DHCP, port forwarding and DMZ (if you really want it). Surely firewall rules to block something are supported. And it can run ping on itself - for you to be sure that it is not messed up ICMP blocking you configured.