Corey's Network Corner
~~Corey Seaton

Choosing the Internet Sharing Software

Again, it's time to make a choice. There are many different ways of doing this, and they all have their pros and cons. Luckily every way can be tested (with free downloadable demos and so on) so you can find a solution that’s right for you.

The first thing to do is choose whether you want your server to be a proxy server or a NAT router. If you've ever configured your web browser to use a proxy you'll have an idea what a proxy server is - basically the server computer sets up a "pretend" web server, email server etc which the client computers connect to, and thus they indirectly connect to the internet. On the other hand a NAT (network address translation) router forwards network packets to and from clients, creating the illusion that each client is connected directly to the internet. This simplifies configuration for the clients - as far as they're concerned they're connected directly to the net! To be honest I can't think of any advantage of a proxy server over a NAT router, but I can think of many disadvantages - it's harder to set up on the server, it's harder to set up on the clients, less internet applications will work on the clients Therefore I unreservedly recommend you choose a NAT router over a proxy server.

There are 4 NAT routers that you should consider, each with their good and bad points. The only free one is Microsoft's Internet Connection Sharing, which comes with Windows 98 Second Edition and above. The most popular program is probably Sygate, but other good ones are NAT32 (a little harder to set up but the cheapest I know of) and Win Route (excellent because it has built-in firewall capabilities, but more expensive). You should probably try each one to find what's right for you - they can all be trialed for free, so there's not really any reason not to try them all before deciding what to stick with. Be sure you only have one installed at a time!

Setting up a NAT router has 2 components - (1) installing the NAT routing software on the server, and (2) configuring the internet applications on the client computers.

Installing the NAT Routing Software

• Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing for Windows 98SE and Windows ME

This software is good because it is free and very easy to install. Its disadvantages are that it's not very powerful (e.g. it doesn't allow port mapping, which all of the other programs do - port mapping is something that you'll probably want to do later on when you get the hang of networking) and that it's said to be technically inferior in terms of speed, reliability and so on. A lot of people can't get Internet Connection Sharing to work with a USB Ethernet adaptor. Overall, it's great for beginners, but if you have a USB Ethernet adaptor you might need to use another program - or buy yourself another PCI network card.

Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing is very simple to install. On the server, go into the Windows Control Panel and open "Add/Remove Programs". Click on the "Windows Setup" tab, double click on "Internet Tools" and tick the box labeled "Internet Connection Sharing".

Click OK then OK again to exit out of the "Add/Remove Programs" control panel. You'll need your Windows CD. The Internet Connection Sharing Wizard will now take you through a couple of simple steps to set up sharing. Don't worry about the floppy disk the Wizard asks you for - put one in just to keep it happy, but you won't need it. When the Wizard is finished you will be prompted to restart your computer.

Now all you need to do is configure the software on the client machines (see below) and you're done!

• Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing for Windows 2000/XP

This is very easy to set up - even easier than Internet Connection Sharing for Windows 98! As with ICS for Windows 98, it is not very powerful, and is thus most suited to beginners or those with a tight budget.

To set up Internet Connection Sharing for Windows 2000, open the Control Panel on the server computer and choose "Network and Dial-up connections". Right-click on the network card that's connected to the cable modem and choose "Properties". Click on the "Sharing" tab and tick "Enable Internet Connection Sharing for this connection". Now click "OK" and *drum roll* that's it!!

• Sygate Home Network

This software is very popular because it's easy to use, powerful and reasonably priced.

Installation is easy. Download the software from here. Install Sygate on the server computer by running sygate.exe. When the installer asks you which mode to install as, choose server mode and click "OK". For now, just click "I am a trial user" when prompted. The "trial key" was displayed at the Sygate website when you downloaded the demo; if you can't remember it you can go back to the link (it doesn't change very often). You don't need to enter a user name; just enter the trial key and click "OK". Restart the computer when prompted.

That's it! Once your server's restarted, your client machines should be able to access the internet!

Tip: You'll probably want to go into the Sygate Manager (which loads at startup) and tell it NOT to load at startup, since it's quite annoying. You do this by clicking on the "Tools" menu and un-ticking Load Manager at startup. Note that the Manager and the Engine are 2 different things - it is the Engine that actually does the NAT routing; the Manager is only for configuring things. So you probably want the Engine to start when Windows does, but not the Manager

• NAT32

NAT32 is quite powerful, yet it's the cheapest of the commercial NAT routers. Its main advantage is its price; its disadvantages include that it's much harder to set up and that the client computers seem to get a slower connection than the server does.

To install, download the software from here. Unzip the file you downloaded to C:\Nat32 on the server. Open your now familiar Network Control Panel, and click on "Add...” choose "Protocol" then click "Have Disk...". Under "Copy manufacturer's files from:" type in "C:\Nat32" and then click "OK". Select the correct version of the NDIS3PKT driver depending on your operating system and click "OK". Click "OK" to exit the Network Control Panel. You'll need your Windows CD and then you'll need to restart your computer.

Run C:\Nat32\Setup.exe to install NAT32 proper. The installation program is ultra-fast and for once you won't have to re-start you computer.

Now run "Configure NAT32" from your start menu. When asked to select which Interfaces you would like NAT32 to use, make sure that both your network cards are selected (if you have no other network devices you can just click "Select all"). Make sure "Create a shortcut" is ticked - this is useful for starting NAT32 later. Click "Continue..."

Next you need to configure your Interfaces. In my installation of NAT32 everything was already correct and I didn't need to change any settings. The main thing to be sure of is that the network card connected to your home network has "Secondary" ticked and "Share" un-ticked, whereas the network card connected to your cable modem has "Primary" and "Share" ticked.

Click through the remaining dialog boxes until you get to the console window:

Now, unfortunately, you'll need to change a couple of the TCP/IP settings that I told you to put in earlier (sorry!). Basically, on each client computer you need to open the Network Control Panel, click on "TCP/IP" (or "TCP/IP -> [name of network card]" if that's what you used before) and click on "Properties". In the "Gateway" and "DNS" sections, you need to change the "192.168.0.1" entries to "192.168.0.100" - you do this by clicking the old entry and then clicking "Remove", and then adding the new entry (i.e. 192.168.0.100) in the same way as you originally added 192.168.0.1. Click "OK" twice to exit the Network Control Panel and suffer yet another Windows restart.

Now you need to do configure the software on the client machines (see below) and you're done!

• Win Route Lite

Win Route is great because it is easy to install, has excellent NAT routing, and (this feature's awesome) it features a powerful built-in firewall. I would recommend it to everyone - in fact, I guess I do - but it is by far the most expensive program of the ones on this page!

To install Win Route Lite, download the software from here. Install the software on the server by simply running the installation program you downloaded. You will be prompted to restart your computer.

Once back into Windows, double-click on the Win Route icon in your system tray (at the bottom right of your screen). Click on the "Settings" tab. Under "Select the adapter used for Internet connection", click on "2nd network adapter..." and choose the network card that is connected to your cable modem.

Configuring the Software on the Client Computers

This is so easy that it hardly merits a place on this page! All you have to do is a little bit of mucking around with the setup of each of your programs - and in fact, most programs don't need any changes at all, and therefore most of them should already work! If they don't, they simply need to be told to access the internet through a LAN (local area network - your home network!) rather than a traditional modem. For example, in Internet Explorer, go to the Tools menu and select "Internet Options". Click on the "Connections" tab and select "Never dial a connection". Simple isn’t it? :-) (For best performance you should also click on "LAN Settings" and make all these settings are the same as they are on your server computer.)

Happy Networking!

Corey Seaton is a Systems Support Officer with Queensland Health.  He also moderates an email group on Home Networking. Why don't you join and talk to others who are networking their home PCs?  Networking Help