Re: upgrade from 98 to XP

[Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

"Steve Hudson" wrote

> 2 NICs (Network Interface Cards). One has the IP for your external
gateway
> and goes to the router. One as the ip 192.168.0.1 which is IP slang for
> "local server".

This is not necessary. The original poster has a router, which is the best
way to go. 

Dual NIC gateways, which is what Steve is suggesting, are a very bad idea.
They are EXTREMELY easy to hack. I have a client who's entire network was
melted down thanks to a dual-nic WinNT gateway. The hacker planted some
nasty crap on the gateway then had his way with the internal machines
(about 40 of them). 

The best config for a small home LAN is to just buy one of those Linksys
or Netgear routers. The 4-port Linksys are down to like $75.00 and A LOT
easier to use than a dual NIC box. And if you do the "DMZ to nowhere"
trick (as I described), you'll actually send inbound hack attempts into
oblivion, slowing down script kiddies armed with port scanners. 

If you really want security, the best answer is a true firewall running
something like BSD. These suckers are rock solid. But they are not for the
faint-of-technical-heart. I use one of these in my office (in addition to
about 5 different IDS products). Nothing gets through them. 

192.168.0.1 is not slang for "local server" its not slang for anything.
The loopback address is 127.0.0.1. And its slang for "localhost." 

And nobody with a small lan should use a submask of 255.255.0.0 unless
they plan on expanding their home office to include 16 million hosts
across 256 subnets (True Class C)! A /25 (255.255.255.128) subnet mask is
more than enough for most home offices. It can have 128 (192.168.1.1 -
198.168.1.128) IP addresses and it is limited to 2 subnets, thus reducing
the chance somebody could try to poison your routing tables or send over
spoofed packets with a higher IP address. 

If you're bored, play with this subnet mask calculator:
http://www.tcpipprimer.com/subnet.cfm?useDHTML=0

Andrew Plato 

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