How to connect to internet without router?

[Dotan Cohen]

On 03/07/06, Howard Coles Jr. <dhcolesj at gmail.com> wrote:
> If you are connecting up via Cable, the authentication should be contained in
> the modem.  All you have to do is set your Kubuntu box up for DHCP and boot
> up, or ifdown, connect cable, and ifup the nic.

Although it is cable, we must enter our user name, password, and some
other stuff into  a built-in windows dialer. Of course, that is not
viable for linux users! I assume this is because the infrastructure
provider (the company that provides the modem and the cable coming
into the house) is not the ISP, so we must tell it to which ISP to
connect. I now understand that this may not be a very common setup in
other countries.

> The question is with the delay, how do your internal boxes get their IP
> address / DNS name and Server IP addresses / router config?  Is it all
> static, or dhcp?

DHCP from the router. I put all my login info into a dialer built into
the router, and it connects to the 'net. Then the local machine[s] get
their addresses via DHCP.

> I have two Linksys routers connected to my Cable modem.  One is my VOIP
> provider (two voice ports) and the other is my Wireless.  One of them
> performs the NAT function, and hands out DHCP addresses, the other is just a
> device on the net.  I figured out what DNS IP addresses to send to my
> internal boxes by setting the first router to DHCP and then checking what
> settings it had received.  If your DNS setup is hosed you'll have a hard time
> communicating to some sites.
>

In any case, I'd like to know how to connect without a router. Based
upon some testing, the router may in fact be the source of problems-
it is dropping anywhere from 2% to 6% of the packets going through it.
It is a Level1 unit, for those about to buy!

Dotan Cohen
http://gmail-com.com