Wired Router

Hey there!

Was wondering if you could help me out. I recently acquired a router (Origo 4 port10/100 Internet Broadband Router Model BRP-1400) (I should like to note I am not planning on getting another router) and wanted to use it to connect two computers to the internet, my computer and a friends. My computer is the unit with the internet connection. I use Telewest cable broadband and the ISP is Blueyonder. I have a basic knowledge of routers, but I don't won't to try setting up the router if it means loosing the internet and then having to contact Telewest to come sort it. I'd prefer to get it right first time, thus my port of call here. What I do understand is that the Media Access control (MAC) address of the router must be registered or cloned. It is possible to register up to 5 MAC address with blueyonder apparently. What I'm not sure about is what MAC address was registered initially to allow me acess to the internet on my computer alone. Was this the modem (Motorola Surfboard Model SB5100i) MAC or the NIC (Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet) MAC address or are these one in the same. The reason I ask this question is that several sites suggest registering the NIC MAC, however as I have said I don't know whether it already has been registered. Also I have no idea whether to register these MAC addresses before setting up the router or after. I also have two MAC addresses for the router a private and public one. What does this mean? I have a feeling I must use the public one but I'm not entirely sure. I've looked in your tutorial section for some sort of procedure I can follow but to no avail. Could you please help? Any aid would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Colin.

Please I'm getting desperate now, can someone help. Any information or directions to other resources would be most helpful. Someone must have something to say on this topic.

Thanks again.

Col.

I really can't believe no one has any suggestions! Well thanks for looking anyhoo. After thinking around the problem I came to the conclusion that it was my NIC that was registered since I use an ethernet connection. It also seems after carrying out some research that blueyonder now automatically detect new MAC addresses, thus no need to register or clone. So I think I am going to just follow the routers manual. From what I gather a public address is what your ISP will see for example i.e. those exterior to your network whilst the private address is used internally. The only problem I have now is that I have several connection types to choose from. PPPoE and DHCP seem the best choices. Can anyone provide any input with regards to this. Cheers!

Col.

Most HSI providers use DHCP to issue IP addresses. Plug the patch cable from the modem into the WAN port of the router and power it up.It should grab an IP from the modem (actually from the ISP DHCP server).
Now plug the two computers into the appropriate LAN ports and they should grab local IP addresses.
There might be some additional settings on each computer such as Default Gateway (which will be the "local" IP of the router,ex: 192.168.1.1) but that depends on the router settings.
Any other questions just ask....HTH

DHCP seemed the most straightfoward option so thanks for verifying that for me. I'll give it a shot.

Cheers, Col.

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!!!!Hey it works!!!! Was so easy! Athough on start up my friends comp came up with conflict error on IP. Will have to see if that reoccurs. However it seems his comp is connecting to internet and is on my network. Hmmm... Anyhoo I am very happy.

One problem I have encountered though is that I can't access my friends files. I can see him though. However he cannot see me??? His OS is 98 whilst mine is XP. I do have a zonealarm firewall running. Any ideas?

Thanks, Col.

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The conflict error does not seem to have repeated itself, so thats a good sign and it seems that the inaccessable files are due to the firewall. So I think its just a case of configuring the firewall. But for this I need a better understanding of DHCP. From what I understand an IP address is allocated when a computer joins the network. The computer sends out a request to ISP DHCP server, which is followed by the DHCP server replying with possible IP candidates to said computer, all of which have set lease periods. Am I thus correct in my understanding that the IP address of any compter on the network may vary over time. Since to my knowledge this would imply setting up the firewall exceptions using the DHCP pre-defined ip range.

Also I found yesterday after my friend turned his computer off that the internet and all internet related function were disabled. In order to enable them I had to reboot. For a small period of time after reboot I found I could still not access the internet. Any suggestions as to why this would have happened?

Had the same problem again with internet so I turned zonealarm off. Hey Presto internet works. I then added the IP range which includes gateway and all possible addresses that DHCP server may assign to the network clients and I haven't had any problems since. I can now also access my friends files. However he still cannot see me. After reading around it seems a lot of sites recomend uninstalling zonealarm cause of such problems. I'd prefer not to do this but my friend needs to share my files. Surely zonelarm has some setting which will allow my friend to see me on the network. Any ideas?

Cheers, Col.