Creating a midly specialized Wireless birdge

[Karma Mechanic]

I'm looking to create a network bridge using an old pc that I have.

I've never done much with networking before, so I could use a bit of help.

The network bridge would be running win 2k pro, and have a Ralink (rt2561) based 802.11g wireless NIC, as well as a standard 10/100 NIC.

I only need to connect to one adjacent computer so I am really hoping that I can do this without having to buy a network hub to go between the two. Meaning I would like to go directly from the 10/100 NIC on the bridge pc to the 10/100 NIC on the second pc with just a patch cable if possible.

My final thing is that the second computer will not always be running Windows, so I need the bridge pc to do all the networking work, and it should hopefully work with just about anything that may be plugged into it. (For those who are interested the second PC runs BeOS R5 often, along with win 2k).

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Karma Mechanic

[Scarecrow Man]

PC1

Is this how your setup will be? I am trying to make the picture in my head.

[Karma Mechanic]

Something like:

10/100 NIC(on PC-1) ----> to (via 6ft cat 5 patch cable) ---> 10/100 NIC(on PC-2), --->then from PC-2(via 802.11g wireless pci card) to ---> independant 802.11g router (WPA encrypted) two floors up ---> wireless router conennects directly to a satililte connection to the internet

[Scarecrow Man]

OK, well you will need to set up your router via the instructions in your users/manual and your ISP. I will assume that part is OK.

You will set up WPA, which I also assume you have done.

You will then set up computer 2 to connect to the wireless router. You will need your WPA key to connect. Done.

Now comes the tricky part. You will need to set up ICS (Inernet Connection Sharing) on the PC with the wireless internet connection. This page may be of some help: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics_2000

Once Internet Connection Sharing is set-up, your PC1 should now be getting an IP address from PC2, allowing it to access the internet.

This is a very specialized network situation, so the website I have linked to may not be exact. I hope this helps a little bit. If not, post back and we will see what we can do to help you.

Just for the record: I have 3 computers in a similar setup.

PC1 hosts the internet via dialup.

PC2 connects to PC1 via a crossover cable. ICS allows PC2 to connect to PC1, but requires a static IP address.

PC3 connects to a router, which is connected to PC1. The router has a static IP address, as does PC3.

PC1 - dialup - DHCP

PC1 2 NIC's BRIDGED - 192.168.0.1

PC2 - 192.168.0.2

Router - 192.168.0.3

PC3 - 192.168.0.4

At one point, I also had a wireless router thrown into this system, but believe me; 3 computers sharing 1 dial-up connection is quite enough! :lol: