🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 13 Nov 2001 00:27:00 GMT, "Halfton" <halfton@pickup.invalid>
wrote:
>"Rob Wilson" <rob@robwilson.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:3bf0633e.4633566@news.demon.co.uk...
>> I guess I could have a gateway / router or some other setup which will
>> enable all the machines to gain access?
>>
>> Has anyone got some thoughts?  The more detail the better,
>> particularly if firewalls and game servers can come into the equation.
>A- a PC with 2 Nic's running Proxy server software, Linux or Windows NAT/ICS
>router
>http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/proxy.htm
>www.linuxrouter.org
>www.sygate.com
>or M$ ICS in 98se and later

AIUI, Most online games aren't really compatible with NAT routers,
particularly if several machines on the internal network need to play
over the internet.

OTOH, a Linux 2.4 kernel with an ipfilter-based NAT firewall with
specially written connection tracking modules might work, but the
connection tracking modules might have to be specially written and
configured for each type of game you want to support. That's probably
easier than trying to program a Cisco router to do something similar.

To avoid NAT problems, you could obtain a block of Internet IP
addresses and assign one to each machine on your internal network.
Then you can open up the firewall and dispanse with the
connection-tracking module.

>B- a dedicated hardware router, even a little linksys BEFSR will logically
>handle that many clients with DHCP

Yes, as long as each machine on the internal network has an Internet
IP address rather than a private IP address.

>    your limiting factor will be available bandwidth from your provider/ISP
>    xDsl/Cable max out at an avg 1.5mbits/sec, and this bandwidth will be
>shared amongst all users connected through it at any given time

That too. It depends how much data the games need to fling around
during play. Your typical FPS game tends to eat up LAN bandwidth (esp.
on a 10Mbps network), so your cable/ADSL bandwidth would soon be eaten
up when several opponents are playing across such a link, but at least
most of the opposition will be in the same boat!

>more info here on howto's, hardware reviews and troubleshooters
>http://www.practicallynetworked.com/
>http://www.dslreports.com
>here's how to link all those Hub's and Switch's to a single LAN port Linksys
>"BEFSR11"
>http://www.practicallynetworked.com/networking/port_expand.htm
>
>here's some info on the physical/cable infrastructure
>http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/network/cable/index.htm
>
>hth
>Joe

-- 
Ian James Abbott (a.k.a. "Abbo") <ian@abbott.org>
"Is there any tea on this spaceship?"
 -- Arthur Dent, "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
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