sharing internet access and email
 

hi guys.

back again. got a question for you. i need to share internet access over a 2-computer network with a cable modem hooked up to on of them. the node with the cable modem hooked up has 2 NICs. i am gonna run win 2k on them both. what is the most feasible way to access 2 different email accounts (from the same mail server) on the 2 nodes. both mails have different ids but come from the same domain.

i am actually looking for ideas on the most feasible solution with least administrative overheads. waiting for you input. ideas on software that we can use, etc. are welcome too.

have a nice day guys and see you around. it´s great to be back after the rather long break!!!!

have a nice day. :)

Hi paras,

You would want a 3 to 4 port hub or router.

The hub allows the modem and both computers to be connected
to it. A router is basically the same as the hub except that the
router assigns IP addresses to each computer and another plus
is most routers are firewall capable (that is they have hardware
firewalls within them).
If by node you are referring to computer...the second NIC card
should be removed and installed in the other computer to allow the
other computer to be able to be connected to the hub/router.
Outlook handles all email configurations. It is totally capable of accessing
any mail server accounts whether you want to access both accounts on
one machine or one account per machine.
Again, Outlook configuration handles all this simply.

hi spider.

ok...this is how far i have come.

i got the cable modem hooked up to one NIC on a computer (comp2) with 2 NICs.......the second NIC i hooked into a hub. the other computer (comp1) i got hooked into the hub......i have the setup so that i can access the internet browsing from comp1 and comp2. i can even download the mail from my domain to comp2. however i have a roadbloack in trying to get comp1 to get mail in either outlook express or eudora from my domain.

apparently all things with microsoft fail and so do with many posts across the web. the message i get when trying to connect through either mail client is that cannot find the host of my domain.

got any ideas why? could it be ports? i have set the default ports for POP and SMTP. does not work out. i do not believe that the ports are set wrong because other clients of my hosting solution provider are not having any problems.

please advice.

The hook up is wrong to the hub on comp2

What you want is the cable modem hooked into the UPLINK or
WAN port of the hub. On comp1 plug it into the hub (any free
port). On comp2 you want to plug in to the hub from one NIC
card only. The other NIC card is redundant.

You don't have to shut off any computers to change rj45 connections
(the cat5/rj45/ether wires used on network connections).

It's a much bigger job to get email working the way you have
it hooked up now. You would have to get a user name and
password associated in comp2 to comp1 so that Windows2000
on comp2 lets comp1 in. The wiring you have now makes it
a shared connection, if you plug each computer into the hub and
the modem into the hub then each computer has access
independently to the cable modem(the Internet).

Second NICs in computers are usually used when one computer
has to be hooked to two different networks. Like say one
connection to the Web and another connection to a server
or another hub that is connected to a different network.

If you get comp2 not being able to access email or the Web after
the rewire, then all that means is you've selected the wrong NIC
card (of the two) to plug into the hub...simple take the rj45 wire
out of comp2's NIC and put it in the other NIC and all should be
ok.

Edited because I got my comp1 and comp2's confused

[ 02 March 2002: Message edited by: Spider ]

hi spider.

this is as a clarification. i was looking into some information on microsoft website and on the resources for win 2000, i recall seeing something saying that we should not try to make the computer-onto-hub-and-cable modem_on_uplink port type of connection for win 2000. do give me your feedback on this.

i am also thinking of doing away with win 2000 and then putting win 98 on both systems and doing a simple ICS so that the two systems can download separate mails to their own clients.

what do you say to that?

It would be hard for me to comment on that without seeing the
page and/or context Microsoft was talking about.

It's possible they were referring to security issues.
Again, I don't really know without seeing that statement
in context.
Well you would not have to do away with Windows2000
to perform ICS. Each computer has it's own email program
(Outlook for example). Outlook is where you would control
what email account is accessed. Whether or not the emails
sent to you are left on the server so that another computer
could download the same email or the email is downloaded
once then deleted off the server is also controlled in Outlook.

So if you had two email addresses like bob@free.com and
bob2@free.com then you would configure Outlook in one
computer to get the bob@free.com email and the other
computer's Outlook would be configured to get the
bob2@free.com email.

If you wanted the first computer to get both emails from
bob@free.com and bob2@free.com but you still wanted
the second computer to also get bob2@free.com email
then the first computer's Outlook would be configured to
get bob@free.com email and delete the copy left on the
server but when it got the bob2@free.com email you would
have that account configured in Outlook to leave a copy of
the email on the server. Then the second computer would
still be able to get any emails sent to bob2@free.com.

As far as ICS is concerned, you don't need it with a hub
or a router. The hub or router have the cable modem, the
first computer, and the second computer all plugged into
it. Therefore you have the connection to the Internet for
both computers provided by the hub or router.

hi spider.

it worked out.

this is what i did. i kept the hub onto computer1 and the computer2 plugged into the hub (into which computer1 would also hook=.

the problem was all about IP configuration and DNS resolutions.

the tech who had originally designed the network had subnetted the C class network with 255.0.0.0 subnet mask. so that is what is changed to 255.255.255.0. then there was also the thing about the DNS server priority. i changed it around to go to the right DNS servers. it took a while because i was not familiar with the IP addresses of the network and how they were connecting to the domain. however, once that was figured out, it was pretty simple. further there was the thing that the server on the network was being shutdown and every time the guys used to boot the clients, the server would not be up all the way with services running and proper user account authentication being done.

now things are cool and i have explained things to the users of the network.

however, i intend to give it two more days before i can smile.

take care and thanks for your input man. its been a pleasure to be interacting with you again.

for you information, i now provide tech support to toshiba laptops. if you have a question for me on one of them, do mail me. i refer a lot of my clients to this website for information when they want support out of scope of warranty (i cannot answer even when i know the answers) :-)

unitl later then!!!!!

Good job paras.

Enjoy the connection.