I have a main pc server connected to a wireless router MR814. This PC connects to the internet via dial up and does ip masquerading for the rest of the pcs in my apartment. The MR814 I use basically to have laptop wireless access. This PC is the default gateway and dhcp server. The I am thinking about going to broadband, specificall, Insight Communications broad band. Would it be an easy transition? I am thinking about connecting the cable modem to the MR814 router and have the router act as dhcp server and ip masquerade server. All the PCs including my main PC would be pointed to the IP of the wireless router as the default gateway. The router would be dhcp server also. Is this going to work? Insight insists on their own cable modem. Is this going to be a problem? Thanks

Not if it's an external. If it's an internal modem, its not worth the hassle (good luck with driver support, plus the performance is worse).

Seems to me like your network is all setup. So except for adapting the router to a cable modem, and switching ip's I don't think there are any other problems - because you're internal network stays the same, right?

its an external cable modem. I figure I will just hook it up to the router and then set the default gateway to the static ip of the cable modem. the cable wouldn't even know about the network I think (doesn't the router hide this from the modem?)

your network doesn't know about the cable modem, your modem doesn't know about the internal network. So I said earlier, all you'll probably need to do is physically change the connection, and then configure your router to connect correctly to your isp. You internal network doesn't change.

Thanks for your advice. I will go ahead and switch to broadband.

Don't forget to check and improve your firewall. You will now be connected all the time and therefore a lot more venerable to attack. Dust off the iptables book and you will be set. I am about to do the same thing (dial-up to cable) and I am like a kid at christmas. What to do with all that bandwidth?

I am using an iptables firewall currently on my main ip masquerade machine. All ports are stealthed. Virtually pop up free.( I have a friend running Windows XP with broadband and no firewall. Cant beleive the amount of popup he gets. Too much as to render the web browsing experience unproductive and frustrating. He has to use a popup blocker that allows only one open window at a time! )

The rest of the machines in my network are open. Now I am thinking I may have to firewall all of them individually unless I can just connect the cable modem to the main pc only and have it continue IP masqurading duties. The wireless router will remain connected to this machine via ethernet and hence all the other machines would be behind the firewall of the ip masq machine. It might be a nightmare to firewall each machine individually as I need them all to communicate unimpeded. What do you think? Netgear MR814 has a built in firewall but I dont know if it is any good. Thanks for bringing up the subject of firewall. I kinda forgot about that.

the two are unrelated.
; )

As for the firewall, sound to me like you have:
NET -> Server -> rest of network

in this case, the first computer that comes in contact with the net, should have a very thorough firewall. the remaining computers will not need one (actually, they may may have something like not allowing connections to them, etc.) The problem is, that this computer (server) will be the only safety between your netwrok and the net -> so set it up well. If you must run some service (like apache), run it on an isolated computer (still behind the firewall) that does not have access to the internal network.

I probably was thinking about Network Address Translation which I understand kills unrequested connections. Maybe this is the reason why my system is virtually pop up free. I am going to have to install a second LAN card and do a lot of reading again. I am going to try to maintain the NET --> server --> rest of network setup instead of cable modem --> netgear router --> rest of the network. I just think it might be more secure or at least I will have the same surfing experience except at a faster connection speed. Insightbb has dynamic ip address. Can you give me any pointers as to how to get this working in linux ? With my current setup, pppd sets the default route. How can you do this with a cable modem connected to eth0. I know I have to change the EXTIF in my firewall from ppp0 to eth0 and the INTIF to eth1 (which will be connected to the wireless router). Somehow I need to tell the dhcp server to use the eth1 interface. Thanks for any pointers you can give. My cable people are going to be here in 3 days.