Dial-up Sharing

[Peter Garrett]

On Wed, 23 May 2007 16:38:00 -0700 (PDT)
Brandon Blackwell <ubuntunews at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Does anybody know if its possible to have one computer to connect 
> to dial up and then have this computer connected to a switch that shares
> the internet access with all the computers attached to the switch? 

I can't see why not :)

>And if you know would you tell how or give me a good link to check out
> because I can't seem to find anything good or that explains what I'm
> wanting to do exactly.
>  

I used to use the "firestarter" firewall app to share a dial-up
connection.  This is more or less how:

1) Install firestarter ( it is in the universe repository so make sure you
have that repository enabled and updated/reloaded - check System
-Administration - Software Sources)

2) Set your other machines to have the dial-up connected machine as
gateway in your networking settings ( System -Administration - Network )

3) Dial-up from the "gateway" machine your modem is connected with

4) Run the firestarter "wizard" and tick the entry for connection sharing/
NAT

That's about it really. If your other boxes are connected with a hub or
switch they should be OK to be on line, as long as the gateway box has
dialled up, and all machines except the modem-connected one are using the
modem-connected machine's internal (normally  eth0) IP as the gateway. 

All you need is the hub/switch and cat5 cables ( very cheap 4 way switch
box here with ethernet cable ports works well ) . You only need one nic on
the gateway box, since you are connecting via ppp using a modem, and using
the free eth0 as your internal network connection. The other boxes need an
ethernet nic each of course.

Now of course, if all the machines are on line at once, things will be
amazingly slow... but that's dial-up.

Peter