Hey, question.

[conuly]

I'm pretty sure this isn't possible, but the less I have to buy, the better.

Is it at all possible to have one computer hooked up directly to the modem, and the other hooked up through the router?

Edit: All right, all right, all right. Unless you can guarantee me a new modem if it blows up the old one, I'm forgetting this insane idea.

Comments

[zathras26.livejournal.com]

I thought of MAC spoofing, too, but I don't think that would do any good -- I've never tried it, so I don't know for sure, but I suspect that would involve unresolvable addressing problems, much like the ones you get when you assign the same IP to more than one computer on a network.

As to tricking the modem into thinking it's been cycled, I don't know. It would probably depend on how accessible the modem's firmware is and whether you'd be able to write a script/app that would be able to do that. Whether that's possible or not, that -- and spoofing, for that matter -- are probably more trouble than they're worth. If routers cost $10,000 or something, some kind of "trick" might be worth the work, but routers are cheap. I use a D-Link 614+, which is a B router with four Ethernet ports, and you can get one of those on eBay for less than ten dollars. So the kind of monkeying around that we're speculating about here just doesn't seem worth the effort.

Your roommate is right about the jacks (and hubs, for that matter). They work strictly on Layer 1 and don't provide the kind of functionality you'd need to share a connection.

[griphus.livejournal.com]

yeah, this is all stuff i have barely touched since compulsory CCNA classes three or four years back...hubs are only on Layer 1? I thought they distributed IP addresses (I didn't say I paid much attention at said classes ;) )

re: the monkeying, yeah, that'd only be worth it for shits and giggles. in a i-fought-big-broadband-and-won way.

[zathras26.livejournal.com]

Nope, hubs are layer 1 devices. They don't do shit. :-) That's one of the reasons that hubs aren't used much anymore... switches do all the same stuff that hubs do, except that they work at layer 2, which eliminates all the collisions you get with hubs and makes your network more efficient.