I found out that cable internet access will be available in my area in the next few weeks and a question has entered my mind. I current have 56K dialup connection. The modem is hooked up to a Windows XP Professional box running ICS. This XP box also has a network card connected to a 9 port hub. I also have another box dual-booting between Windows XP/Pro and Red Hat Linux 8.0. This machine also has a network card in it connected to the 9 port hub. Thirdly I have a D-Link wireless access point through which my laptop gets out onto the internet via the ICS running on the main XP box. Now when I get my cable modem...I realize that the modem will go away and a second network will go into my computer that will in turn connect via Cat5 to the cable modem. Now I know that the second network will also have the public IP address and the like bound to it. My question is....will I turn on ICS on that second network card or what? This is confusing me because I know that when I turned on ICS on my current configuration...it changed the network card's IP address to 192.168.0.1 and then allowed the other machines to pull IPs via DHCP. I may not have made a bit of sense here...but how are my other machines gonna know how to get to the gateway to get out onto the internet? I am considering getting a router. I know Linksys makes a router with 4 10/100 ports as well as a WAN link and this may totally clear up my confusion. Any input would be appreciated...
Grant
Grant