Subj : Re: Newbie Networking Question
To   : ALL
From : Frank Reid
Date : Tue May 29 2001 02:30 am

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[ Reference]: Newbie Networking Question
[ Posted By]: Bennie Hutto (1:360/5)
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BH> To be Client machine:
BH>    486DX/100mhz machine, Win98SE, 16meg RAM. 1 of the
BH>    IBM NIC's is installed in this machine.

You mention DOS... is the client to be running DOS?

BH> but the modem syncs up and the same program shows me my correct IP
BH> address, something's just not jiveing between the NIC card and the
BH> adapter card that the Alcatel installed under the Network Adapters
BH> in the System device drivers. Is there a way to set the 'default'?

Are you loading the Internet Connection Sharing package from Win98SE?  That's 
what allows a remote computer to use the active Internet connection (Alcatel 
DSL router).

A couple observations/comments.  First, you're going to need to load client 
software on the DOS (assumed) machine in order for it to do networking.  There 
are only a few options for DOS.  The best, in my opinion, is LANtastic 
(www.lantastic.com).  It will provide full client and server networking 
capabilities on both the DOS and the Windows machines.  Microsoft also 
released a DOS-capable client software many years ago.  I'm unsure if you can 
still find it, but it used to be on their site as MSCLIENT*.ZIP, I believe.

Next, your mileage is going to vary greatly using the cross-over cable 
configuration you described.  Typically, a 10Base-T network ("wide phone 
jacks") requires a hub or switch to control traffic.  I know that you can 
network two machines with a cross-over, as you described, but when you throw 
in the Internet Connection Sharing capability and remote file/print, I think 
you ask too much of that.

So, my suggestions are:

    1) Find appropriate client software for your DOS machine.  If you want to 
share files *from* DOS, your options are limited.  If you only need to share 
files from the Windows machine, you might even get by with the Novell IPX 
client talking to Windows.  If you want to do TCP/IP, you're going to need an 
NDIS-type driver for your DOS machine.  That means you will have to identify 
the model/manufacturer and download an appropriate driver diskette.

    2) Load the Internet Connection Sharing stuff on your Win98SE machine.  
Once you have the NDIS driver working correctly on the DOS machine, this is 
what's required to masquerade it through the Win98SE machine to get out on the 
Internet.  Once ICS is installed, it will handle all the "defaults" you 
mentioned, in terms of routing packets out to the Internet.

    3) Invest in a cheap, 4-port hub for your protected network.  This will 
eliminate the potential issues having two adapters in the Windows machine, 
with one of them direct-wired via cross-over.

Good luck with it!

Frank

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