On 12/10/11 11:50 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: Last week I grabbed a 50-port Netgear 10/100 out of the dumpster at work and there's another smaller one sitting in there now. So yeah, not very expensive. --Toby

Monoprice is your friend for extra-cheap Ethernet switches. 8-port 10/100Mbs switch for $9.

I suppose since I haven't met anywhere near all the DSL and cable providers in the US, that I could be wrong, but... this sounds like a grievous misunderstanding of the common "one external IP address" service. The device will hand you more than one internal IP. If it's equipped with one port and not doing NAT, then it is expecting you to supply a firewall device, not to plug directly into it. The firewall device will then do NAT and hand you multiple internal addresses. De

On 10/13/2011 11:43 AM, John Foust wrote: Verizon(both DSL and FIOS) and Comcast(cable modem) who are the predominant carriers in my area give out wireless *routers* standard and have done so for at least 5 or 6 years. There are no more DSL *modems* or cable *modems* that operate like you suggest. If I go back about 10 years, yes, Adelphia(before bought by Comcast) would pass out cable modems. My parents got DSL about 8 years + ago, and the initial device was in fact a router. So the routers, performing the NAT, pass out multiple internal 192.168.x.x/24 (RFC 1918 addresses) and then translate to the single external IP address assigned via DHCP if it's cable service, and PPPoEoA if it's ADSL. You can't natively attach directly to the cable port (because it's coax), or the ADSL port (because, well, it's ADSL) and so the modem functionality is directly built into the routers. In FIOS installations that give you native RJ-45 ethernet ports (what I have, much better than the damn moca connections), the behavior is as you describe. If you connect directly to the ONT (optical network terminal), a single external IP address assigned and locked to your MAC via DHCP. However, every FIOS installation comes with a free router (and required for use with moca, unless you have a moca->ethernet bridge) and always have. I had FIOS access within three weeks of them pulling the single-mode fiber down my street. The days of the ISPs trying to upsell a router(or wireless router) are long gone. Consumers now-a-days demand wireless routers standard. Keith

At 10:43 AM 10/13/2011, you wrote: Um, this boy is on ATT DSL and plugged my 16-port 10/100/1000 Netgear switch right into my AT&T-supplied DSL modem widget and voila! All the internal IP addresses one could ever want. I even have a Linux server handing out a different range of addresses and there's no interference-- the DSL modem gets there first. A very large number, a majority I would guess, of DSL modems and cable modems have an internal DHCP server to hand out IP addresses and keep track of them. I have quite a selection of old Lucent types, Actiontec, and many other kinds from previous ISPs and those that were given to me. They all seem to have most of the features a router should have, except that the firewalls in some of them are pretty weak and not very flexible. Of course, my experience is limited to the mid-West and the cable and DSL providers one finds hereabouts. How did we get onto a discussion of static addresses? That's on the outside of your network, and yes, the ISP has to provide it and yes they will charge you a bunch of money for it. I used to have one, for many years, until they proposed raising the rate beyond what I found reasonable. If you want static IP addresses inside your network, that's fine, do it. Just manually configure the address, mask, and gateway on each device, and off you go. Even on the printer, there's ways to do it, using the buttons, or using the menu to print the current address, then using a web client or telnet to that address. 967 . Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done. -- Andy Rooney NEW: a50mhzham at gmail.com ? N9QQB (amateur radio) "HEY YOU" (loud shouting) ? Second Tops (Set Dancing) ? FIND ME ON FACEBOOK 43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W ? Elevation 815' ? Grid Square EN53wc LAN/Telecom Analyst ? Open-source Dude ? Musician ? Registered Linux User 385531

On Thu, 13 Oct 2011, John Foust wrote: Well the assumption being that if he's hanging out here, he knows these things. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.