Home network router Q

B

Biogeek

Registered
I could use a bit of help. I am in the planning stages of setting up a home ethernet network in a new home I am building. I will likely get Broadband access though RoadRunner cable (or perhaps DSL). I understand that I will need to connect RoadRunner to a cable modem, and the cable modem to some sort of router. The router will then be connected to 5 ports in a patch panel, which will in turn be wired to 5 different locations in the house. At these locations I will have 2 Macs running OS X and one running OS 9, for the time being.

My question is this: If I would like to be able to share broadband access as well as fileshare between these computers using AppleTalk, what would be my best solution for a router?

I assumed that almost any router could so this for me, but the Apple rep at my local CompUSA (yeah, I know...) claims that not all routers will work with AppleTalk, and they did not sell one that does work.

A related question: must I use AppleTalk to fileshare between these computers running OS 9 and OS X, or is there an alternative?

General advice as well as specific router recommendations would be welcome and appreciated. Obviously, I would like to do this for a reasonable price (sub-$150?) and ideally have 5 or more ethernet ports.

Thanks, y'all.

Biogeek
 
I use a LinkSys 4 port router/switch to connect all of my Macs together in a LAN and share my cable connection to the internet. The 100mb switch works quite well and I use AFP over IP between the Macs. The router will not let the AppleTalk leak out unless you program it too and can act as a firewall. The router will use DHCP to assign IP addresses or you can do it manually. I find DHCP works great for me.
 
Something cheap-n-cheerful, like the Linksys router should do just fine in this situation. The only issue I can think of is name resolution among the machines behind the router. I've set up a DNS server to handle that, but with only 5 machines, you might get away with simple host files.

I think there's a great deal of confusion around Macintosh networking these days. The Apple rep was mostly right when he said that not all home routers support Appletalk. The fact is, none of them do, as far as I'm aware. And y'know what? It doesn't matter. Appletalk is a low-level protocol at the same point as IP in the network stack (roughly speaking). MacOSX doesn't even run Appletalk by default.

What is being used these days is AFP/TCP - Appletalk File Protocol over TCP. That is, Apple wisely decided to divorce AFP from Appletalk so that it could run over what ever infrastructure happens to be there. AFP works anywhere that IP works (firewalls notwithstanding), so the Linksys (and other home routers) will work with your Macs just fine.

The only catch is that your non-MacOSX machines must also understand AFP/TCP. The good news is that MacOS9 does. Your MacOSX machines will not appear in Chooser; instead, you'll click the server address button and provide it there. Other than that, the network volumes will work just the same as they always did under MacOS.

The router/switch in the link above only has 4 ports; you may need to add a separate switch to support all machines on your network. The good news is that the price of the router and the switch combined work out to about $130. The bad news is that you'll still need patch cables (from the wall to the computer). Those are very expensive at places like CompUSA. The last time I looked (emergency situation), they were getting $15-20 for lengths of a metre and less. You probably want to shop around for those (or build your own)..

Sorry 'bout being long-winded - I've been through this myself and have helped a couple of friends get their home networks in order, so... :)
 
kenny, I have never had any problems with DNS with the LinkSys using it on cable or DSL, both static or DHCP. I have made an entry for the DNS servers in the router configuration, even though it uses DHCP. The DNS servers addresses never change.
My Mac OSX shares do show in the Chooser of a Mac running OS9. This started with the 10.1 upgrade.
 
By DNS issues, I meant that the machines do not have a way to reference each other by name on a pure IP network. It's curious that you mention the change in behavior on 9 since the 10.1 update. I wasn't aware of that; I can't tell you the last time I was in 9.x for anything (hooray! ;) ). However, it might eliminate the need for a name resolution mechanism in a Mac-only network, so that's pretty cool. Not that I don't believe you, but I'll have to play with that a bit and see what's going on... Good stuff.. :)
 
I used a Netgear RT314 router with a setup very similar to yours, setup was easy and I have been very happy with it. Works well, seems really secure. I have norton personal firewall on my machines and not one of them has had one access ATTEMPT since the router was installed, so its obviously blocking most of the garbage.

Just another option.

later
Tim
 
Thanks for your input. A friend also recommended the Netgear router as working well on a PC network, so it's good to hear the same regarding Macs. I may ultimately need to bring a PC into the house (kicking and screeming), but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. It's also good to hear multiple recommendations for the Linksys routers, they seem to be ubiquitous and affordable.

Kenny, thanks for the network primer - I am definitely a novice when it comes to networking. Will I need to configure the Macs (OS 9 or X) when I finally get set up, or should it be plug and play?

Biogeek
 
Originally posted by kenny
By DNS issues, I meant that the machines do not have a way to reference each other by name on a pure IP network.
Click to expand...
That would be WINS for our PeeCee brethren. AppleTalk will broadcast machine names now in OSX 10.1 and be discovered in the Chooser or Connect to Server in X.
DNS does not hand out machine names, but will only resolve domain names to an IP address. Dynamic DNS in Win2k or XP servers will transmit machine names, but this does not work with Macs. Maybe OSX will be different in the future with its integration into SMB/CFS and integration to Active Directory services for the darker side.
It should be possible to reference machine names with a hosts file in OSX, as I do in Red Hat Linux servers, but I have not done this as there is no foreign OS in sight other than OS9 or X.
 
This may not be what you want, however....

You could use a spare bit of processing on one of your Macs and use IPNetRouter (cheap as anything). It handles all the internal DNS/DHCP and the name to address translation (NAT) for the rest of the Macs at home.

http://www.sustworks.com/index.html

I haven't had a go yet, but there should be no reason why MacOSX can't do it, routing is a standard part of UNIX.

MacOSX has an available Firewall called "Brikchouse", which looks very familiar to the other firewall products found under Linux.
 
We use the Asante Friendly Net router with four port switch both at home and the small office I manage. At the office we added the Asante eight port switch for a total of ten ports. The router has worked perfectly. At home we are Macs only but at the office we mix Macs and pcs without trouble.

OS X can natively log into a PC host. To act as a server the Mac needs to download the free Samba server or buy something like DAVE. I've tried the former but not the latter.

At home a lightning strike took out the DSL modem and one port of the router. Both were replaced free under warranty.

At home we have at times temporarily exceeded the four port limit. In that case we just moved cables around to share the connection. Unless all five will be permanently busy you don't need the second switch.

I too was surprised at the price of cables in the US. There must be a cheaper place to get them. Here in Japan at the local Yodobashi Camera store they have a rack full of Ethernet cables ranging from 1m to 25m. I think the 25m cable was about $10 or $15. Try someplace that is not so much of a consumer shop. Ethernet cables should be cheap.
 
Originally posted by kenny
The Apple rep was mostly right when he said that not all home routers support Appletalk. The fact is, none of them do, as far as I'm aware.
Click to expand...

None of the routers support passing AppleTalk packets between the WAN and LAN interfaces (between your local network and the internet). However, the issue is often do the routers transmit AppleTalk packets from LAN port to LAN port, and unfortunately the case is that most do not. However, a few do:
The new Apple Airport basestation, the MacSense XRouter Pro, the Asante Router, and the SMC Wireless Barricade all support AppleTalk on the LAN
side.

AppleTalk still does have uses. It can be valuable if you have an old Ethernet printer, as until a few years ago, even Apple's printer didn't support LPR. And if you don't have DNS on your local system, AppleTalk over IP can be a difficult task for many users
(I can just imagine what my parents would say if I told them I set up their network and to get to a fileshare they had to remember "192.168.1.42"
 
neutrino23

I've found cheap ethernet cables (2 x RJ45 male) at, of all places, Dell.com. Around $2-3 for 3ft cables. They actually have competitive prices on all kinds of accessories, including networking hardware.

Biogeek
 
neutrino23

I've found cheap ethernet cables (2 x RJ45 male) at, of all places, Dell.com. Around $2-3 for 3ft cables. They actually have competitive prices on all kinds of accessories, including networking hardware.

Biogeek
 
Originally posted by houchin


None of the routers support passing AppleTalk packets between the WAN and LAN interfaces (between your local network and the internet). However, the issue is often do the routers transmit AppleTalk packets from LAN port to LAN port, and unfortunately the case is that most do not. However, a few do:
The new Apple Airport basestation, the MacSense XRouter Pro, the Asante Router, and the SMC Wireless Barricade all support AppleTalk on the LAN side.
Click to expand...

This is only partially correct. It is true that none of the routers (at least, the home-based ones we're talking about) will pass Appletalk out the WAN port. However, the statement that they'll not pass Appletalk between the LAN ports is simply incorrect. The routers in this class generally use a simple, unmanaged ethernet switch for the 4 (or sometimes 8) LAN ports, which supports all protocols on ethernet. The only exception to this may be what was known as "Phase 1 EtherTalk", but that disappeared in favour of Phase 2 more than 10 years ago. These days, nobody even calls it EtherTalk any more.

I do consulting work for a charity, and they've got this very situation, and they've got nothing but MacOS9 machines. There's never been a problem with a lack of support for Appletalk on the LAN. Likewise, my home network (9 machines and counting! ;) ) has always been able to pass Appletalk (with the exception of the wireless segments - see below).

I think that one would be hard-pressed to find a home router that didn't support Appletalk across the LAN ports. Getting the manufacturers to admit that they do... well, that's probably a different story.. :)

Since it was brought up, it should be noted that Airport is a special case. 802.11b does not support Appletalk, so even thought the computers that are on the "local" network by virtue of being wireless will not be able to use Appletalk. This applies to basically any 802.11b access point as the lack of support is the "fault" of the IEEE spec, not Airport in particular.
 
Originally posted by kenny
I think that one would be hard-pressed to find a home router that didn't support Appletalk across the LAN ports. Getting the manufacturers to admit that they do... well, that's probably a different story.. :)
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll give you this, as I've never tried it on a router that doesn't make the claim in their marketing literature. However, I'm still inclined to stick with vendors that know enough to state it, as they're more likely to deal with other Mac OS issues better. I remember that there were some Mac problems with the original LinkSys routers (you could get around them, but a average consumer Mac user might have been a bit confused). Companies like MacSense and Asante are very Mac friendly across everything, and I'm inclined to believe that I'll get better service from them.
 
Like kenny said, any hub or switch that supports standard ethernet protocols will do fine.

If you want to strech your apple file sharing outside the router, just enable the correct ports to pass through and you're fine (that is, with Apple File Sharing over TCP/IP).
 
Apple has updated their appletalk to TCP/IP standards. I no it's not by default and I'm not in front of my mac to give specifics on where it's at, but I know in the network settings; both OS 9 and OS X support Appletalk via TCP/IP so there should not be an issue with connecting machines via router and sharing via Appletalk. At least at the OS level.

I have connected two OS X machines over the internet this way without any problems at all. On one side there was a netgear switch and the other side had a linksys router; linksys had not filtering set for appletalk.


Putting that aside, to decide upon what router to use for a home network really comes down to what protocols you want to use and how much you want to spend. You can spend $79-$1000 on a router, it's just a question of what's in the box.

For network printing, ftp, telneting, appletalk, gaming, the linksys router (wired 4 port or 8 port; wireless 4 port) does a fine job and would be a good recommendation.

Happy networking!:cool:
 
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