I am looking to set up a small home network, with the goal of allowing my wife to relax on the couch with her laptop and wireless connection, just like they do on TV (her idea, not mine).

I have a desktop running slackware and a couple of PCI NICs in it. Cable internet and modem, comes into eth0. I have used eth1 and a crossover cable to share the cable connection before.

1) hardware-wise, is a wireless router (Linksys WRT54G or equivalent) enough to accomplish this (the laptop has wireless capability).

2) does the router have to go between the cable modem and the desktop+laptop, or can I connect it to eth1 (i.e., so that the router is only between the desktop and the laptop)? my goal is to provide wireless connection only to the laptop, and to use the router only for that purpose (also, to be able to shut off the wireless network when she's not using the laptop)

3) if I did (2) above, how would I configure the IP's? does the router get assigned an IP, and the laptop another? would this setup make securing the connection more difficult?

if there is a document or resource I can read about this please let me know - everything I've found (that I understand) so far is either related to IP-Masq. for Linux, or to windows network setups.

Thanks in advance

The easiest is buy a wireless router. Place it between the modem and all machines. Connect the lan machines to the lan ports and the wan to the modem.

The router is configured based on the wan side as to what your provider is doing. If you get an IP from them then setup the wan side to do that. If static then fill in the blanks for that.

The lan machines can be static or get the ip from the router. The routers use the non routable IP range like 192.168.0.0/24 or similiar. As an example using this range you set the routers lan ip to 192.168.1.1. Then say the first machine you define say 192.168.1.10, subnet 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.0.1, and define the DNS the provider is using.

You can turn off the wireless side on most routers. But is done from the web server interface most of them use.

ip-masquerade is stuff related to using linux as a router.

Brian

Hi PJ,

You can do the wireless router setup in several ways. It depends
upon your needs.

1. You can setup a router as Brian1 suggests, if you wish the router to
become your firewall/packet filter between your private LAN and the
hostile Internet. Do it like this:

a) connect an RJ-45 cable between the router WAN port and your cable modem,
b) connect the desktop via eth0 to one of the wired router ports,
c) have the laptop connect wireless to the router,
d) setup the router like the manufacturer suggests, using your ISP-assigned
IP address as the WAN IP address, and let the DHCP server in the router
assign local/LAN IP addresses.
e) setup DHCP clients [dhcpcd/dhclient/et.al.] in the Desktop/laptop.

2. Or, you can put the router "behind" the Desktop, so that it is between
the Desktop and the laptop. This would allow you to run a software firewall/packet
filter in the desktop to protect your LAN from the hostile Internet. Do it like this:

a) connect an RJ-45 cable between the Desktop NIC eth1 and the router WAN port,
b) connect an RJ-45 cable between the Desktop NIC eth0 and the cable modem,
c) have the laptop connect wireless to the router,
d) setup the router to have a static IP on the WAN port which is in the same
subnet as the desktop's NIC eth1. Use another subnet range for the routers
LAN side NIC address, and the DHCP server's address range.
e) setup DHCP clients [dhcpcd/dhclient/et.al.] in the laptop.

I have a setup like 2. because I run a Linux firewall using iptables rules, with 3 NICs, one to Internet, one to private LAN and one to a DMZ LAN. Thus, I have no need for the routers firewall.

I setup networking on the firewall box to run a DHCP client, to receive the IP address for the NIC connected to the cable modem [eth0] from my ISP's DHCP server. That IP address is something like 68.xx.yy.zz.

I have the firewall box's private LAN IP [eth1] addresses staticly assigned in the private Class C range of 192.168.1.xxx, with the firewall box having the LAN NIC device eth1 set to 192.168.1.1. This address is also the gateway address for the other LAN desktops route commands.

I assign the router WAN side NIC IP address statically to 192.168.1.200.

I set the routers LAN side NIC IP address statically to 192.168.0.1. This becomes the gateway address for the laptop whenever it connects to the wireless router.

I set the routers LAN side to use DHCP, with the DHCP address range in the wireless router to be 192.168.0.101 thru 192.168.0.110. This means that the Toshiba laptop I have, will usually have assigned, an IP address of 192.168.0.101 to the wireless NIC device ath0.

In answer to your questions in item 3), the wireless router has two network adapters,one for the WAN side, and another for the LAN side. Each adapter needs to have IP addresses assigned. They must be on different subnets: say 192.168.1.200 for the WAN side, and 192.168.0.1 for the LAN side [assumes a subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 or /24 in CIDR form]


some links

http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/w...ess_Networking
http://www.suseforums.net/lofiversio...hp/t28877.html

Thumbelina, Brian -- thanks so much for your posts, they really help a lot.

I was thinking of doing what Thumbelina described in (2) -- based on your description, I think that will work perfectly. The only problem I see is maybe step 2d, configuring the router - I don't suppose it's too tough to figure out, but as I've never done it I anticipate some trial/error.

Many thanks again, I'll post my progress later.