I've read a great deal on google but nothing that spoke to my unique situation.

I have two T1 connections. I'm not choosing/paying for the second one, it's just there.

I have two boxes with network cards. I have a spare network card that is not installed. I don't have a router or anything like that.

What is the easiest, cheapest way to have these computers on the internet and able to read/write to each other's files?

I'm a novice but I see two ways, and it isn't clear which is better: setting up a LAN and sharing one internet connection, or giving each computer its own internet connection and setting up some kind of network file sharing.

I'd also like to spend as little $ as possible, and to involve as few new pieces of electronics as possible. (My wife is at her rope's end with the amount of monitors, amplifiers, and speakers in this place.)

If you only have one extra network card and dont want to spend any cash, then I would make one of your servers the router. Put the second NIC in whichever box you want and enable ip masquerading.

Or you can spend $20 and get a cheap 10/100 NIC so you can have 2 NICs per computer and utilize the dual T1's yet still have a LAN setup. Then you just run SAMBA servers to be able to fileshare.

Its up to you. I can give you a hand with whichever you want to do.

tek8one

Both of these are older workstations that need to be capable of running X simultaneously. Is there a performance trade-off in this setup? If not, cool!

This is an interesting idea. Will this give better network speed overall? It has the drawbacks of doubling the # of wires (the computers are in separate rooms) and putting both computers at risk of being damaged by me. Not that I'm afraid to install things--I've done modems and NICS before. I've also ended up with a dead computer.

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Its up to you. I can give you a hand with whichever you want to do.

Thanks! When I know if there are any performance trade-offs I'll pick one and get at it.

When you say better network speed what do you mean? on your net connection. AFAIK the answer to that would be no. If the lan is with 10/100 cards and you use one comp as a router then the answer would be that there would be very little difference in performance as T1 running flat out will only take about 1% of a 100mbps LAN so the other 99% can be used for file transfers, printing etc. NICs also take very little processing power so that would not be a problem.

If you're going to use large amounts of bandwidth, then you might as well shell out for the extra network card and make use of both internet connections. In this case you can simply have a crossover cable running between the two machines' internal network interfaces, so no there's no extra cable mess.

If you're not bandwidth-hungry, then you might as well have the dual-NIC box doing IP-masquerading and concentrate all your adminning on that machine, leaving the other as a client.

As for sharing files between the machines, you have a choice between NFS and samba. If you have serious specific needs you're going to have to read up on each and decide for yourself. If you just need really simple sharing out of a directory or two, then either will do it with little fuss.

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Where are you that you get two T-1 lines? Those run a few grand a month!!! If you are shelling out that much for bandwidth, I'd go pick up a Cisco router that would enable you to combine the two T-1 (multiplexing) into one huge pipeline... If you have two sepperate IP addresses, then I would set up each box with two cards. Have each box connected to a T-1 and then have a switch connect the two computers. I say a switch because you may want to add another computer later and it saves you time from making a cross-over cable.

I'm a grad student and the university owns my apartment building. They've got us wired onto the university network. Pretty nice! I think my rent is a little higher for the service, but nothing like a few grand higher!

you probably dont have your own T1 if that's the case. 1 T-1 could service the whole building. You probably just have 2 ip addresses. (if the university was giving out T1 lines..that would be a vast mis-use of funds).

in that situation i'd put 2 NICs in both computers. Give them both their own IPs (from the network) and then tie the 2 together with a crossover cable and use that to share files.

when i think about it, if the computers are already on the same network (im guessing both connections go to the same switch) then you dont need to add any new NICs at all, just put both on the internet and share files using whatever IPs you get. Chances are they are are already on the same subnet so u dont need any new hardware at all.

oh, if you choose to try that, be careful not to share your files with the whole world (or subnet).

Both computers have the same numbers in the first two fields of their IP addressess. I.e.,

X.Y.a.b
X.Y.c.d

Is that what you mean by being on the same subnet?

As for not sharing my files with the world, do you simply mean I should export my directories only to my machines, and set up a firewall to reject connections except for those from my machines? Or is there something more specific and complicated to do?

basically you have your IP address and a subnet. I am not sure of the function of subnet, it maybe to break up a network into areas. It is separate from your ip address. You can setup a firewall to protect shares, but i would just password protect them if there is nothing vital in them, otherwise you would need something a little stronger.

Subnets break a set of IP addresses into groups, by limiting broadcasts. Say you have the IP 10.1.1.12 and the subnet 255.255.255.0, everyone in 10.1.1.x will see broadcasts from you, but if the subnet mask was 255.255.0.0, every one in 10.1.x.x will see the broadcasts. it basicly says how many hosts are in a network. it gets alot more complex than that, and i probrobly missed a few things seeing as its been almost a year since my last cisco class ( and yet i still havnt went to go get CCNA certified )

even if the two ips you have arent in the same subnet, you should still be able to share files, unless they have some crazy ACLS in place or somthing

you learn something new everyday!