Swapping between router and direct Internet connection with shared drives?

[Dazzer]

Hi fellas,

I'm made a big mistake two days ago, but got off lightly, but I have a query re networking my drives and security. This will take a little to explain so please have a little patience and read on to understand my predicament.

I'm run Windows XP with SP2 on my desktop and on my notebook. I have a Billion 711CE adsl modem and a Dlink DI-624 4 port wireless router.

I had my modem in bridge mode, working with the router i.e. using NAT and have a static IP on my desktop and dynamic on my router. I have port forwarding working perfect for my desktop, and don't require port forwarding for my notebook (thus it obtains an IP from the router).

I have all my games, ftp server, and p2p programs (LimeWire and Azureus Bit Torrent client) working fine, successfully port forwarded, with the except of one p2p program – eMule. I have successfully port forwarded eMule (when you installed the latest version of the program it has a test to make sure you have the correct TCP and UDP ports forwarded).

Even though port forwarding is correctly set up for eMule I was only getting a trickle of a d/l from eMule, maybe 1 to 3kbs, when about 6 items in the d/l queue with plenty of sources. I use to d/l a lot faster with when I didn't have a router, but straight connection to the Internet with my Billion adsl modem in bridge mode (i.e. no NAT).

So the other night I unplugged my modem from the router, set up a PPPoE connection in Windows, just using my Billion adsl modem in bridge mode and left it overnight. Sure enough, it was d/l at 28kbs in the morning. I went to work and came home, and still had great eMule download speeds, but my browser, Internet Explorer, had been hijacked (I had IST 'spyware' toolbar installed, which gave me pops and all the usual crap). I did have Norton's Anti-Virus 2004 running, but I had no firewall running (I had disabled the SP2 firewall earlier when it gave me some trouble, but my system was still using the Dlink router at that stage and had the protection afford by NAT), and worst, I had my C and D drive shared, as well as, my laser printer shared. This shared setup was for my encrypted wireless network and which had NAT protection of the router. Obviously, I was an easy target and lucky I only had my browser hijacked. I had those items shared because I'm always copying information back and forth from my notebook and server for study and play, and it is much easier to have the whole drives shared, rather than a single share folder.

I was just going to remove the spyware, but it the instructions didn't add up with the registry keys I was suppose to delete, so I saved my data, and went back to a recent image of my HDD. Goodbye spyware.

My predicament is, I would like to have my wireless setup with C and D drive shared, as well as my printer, and connected to the router during the day (so it has the NAT protection and SP2 firewall protection), but at night, quickly unplug my Billion adsl modem from the router, plug it direction into my Ethernet port and connect directly to the Internet with a Windows PPPoE connection so I can use eMule and get good speeds. If I do this, I’m wondering if the SP2 firewall or another software firewall, would be enough to protect the shares of C drive and D drive, and my printer? If I unshared C, D and my printer, I have to reboot, which is a pain if I have to do this every night and morning, if I want to d/l from eMule each night? Or does anyone have another idea to help my predicament?

If you got this far, thanks for reading my post.

Any advice or info will be much appreciated.

Cheers

Dazz

PS I hope this post makes sense

 

[David]

First of all, P2P discussion can be a touchy subject, so as an advanced warning don't let the discussion go as far as to result in a threadlock by the mods.

As for your problem - I'm not sure how good the SP2 firewall is, although some protection is better than none. Also you may want to find an Emule forum of some sort and see if they know how you avoid the slow downloads issue when everything is hooked up conventionally.

 

[Dazzer]

Hi David, thanks for the warning. To clarify, my question is not about P2P, but connecting to the Internet with my bridge enabled adsl modem, connecting directly to the internet (i.e. no NAT) and all my drives and printers shared (for when connected to my wireless network), but in a secure fashion.

Cheers

Dazz