how to share internet over lan?

[Miss winnie]

i reacently bought 2 lan cards and i was going to plan to share internet with my 2 comps.. my comp is linked to the internet by adsl and i was just wondering how i could link internet by lan cards

[flounder43]

A router would do it. It clones the ip address and/or MAC address of your computer, and lets you hook up multiple comps.

[Miss winnie]

what's a router?

[mikester]

a router is like a gateway from your dsl modem to any number of possible pc's hooked into it via lan cables.

theyre very easy to use and set up. i myself have a dlink model and 2 pc's hooked into one dsl connection and ive never had a problem.

make sure u have integrated hardware firewall in the router tho, it saves a lot of trouble and is a very good thing to have.

[lennytiger]

Or just use a software proxy server!!! THEY'RE CHEAPER!!!

[Mad_Heckler]

Although there are a few ways to do this, I would go with the router. If you use a router you will not have to have both computers on just to use 1.

[scooter4n]

Try this, very easy to use, good program, plus it's free.http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10101-100-1546996.html?tag=st.dl.10001-103-1.lst-7-11.1546996

[PolyPill]

Since you're using ADSL your modem might be able to do this already. If you've got one of those cisco ones, not sure of the number, you just need a cheap $20 hub.

If you're running windows xp you can have 2 cards in 1 machine then enable internet connection sharing. Some people say this doesn't work well, but on my primarily linux network the gateway is win xp and I've had no problems.

I think the routers are a last resort for the lazy person with money. Easy to install, but they're like $150, save yourself some money and learn a bit more about how things work, thats what I say.