OT: ADSL safe practices and setting up a home network

[Robin Laing]

Debbie Deutsch wrote:
> James Wilkinson wrote:
> 
>>Richard England wrote:
>>
>>>I'm looking into entering the 21st century and need some help finding out how 
>>>to go about setting up an ADSL connection at my home. Can anyone give me some 
>>>good novice references for what is required for a safe connection in
>>>the way of cable modems, routers, hardware firewalls, and how this is
>>>all connected?
>>
>>Usual advice is to get a hardware "ADSL router" that connects to one or
>>more computers via Ethernet or (possibly) wireless Ethernet
>>
>>phone line -> ADSL port on the router <- Ethernet cable -> PC
>>                                    ^----Ethernet cable -> PC
>>
>>James.
>>
> 
> 
> Sometimes the ISP supplies an ADSL modem that you are required to use.
> In that case, you can purchase a regular hardware router.  It would be
> similar to what James described, except it plugs into the ADSL modem
> (via an ethernet cable) instead of directly into the phone line.  It
> should cost a bit less because it does not have any ability to "speak"
> ADSL. In this case the picture would be
> 
> phone line - ADSL modem - ethernet cable - router - ethernet cable - PC
>                                                   - ethernet cable - PC
> 
> These days, routers come with the "firewall" capabilities built in.  If
> you stick with any of the major brands you probably will be fine.  (I
> have no horror tales about obscure manufacturers, but I *know* you will
> almost certainly be okay if you get a model from, say, Linksys or NetGear.)
> 
> Remember that the major difference between dial-up and broadband is that
> your computer is always connected; therefore the big difference in what
> you have to protect against is probes from the bad guys who are looking
> for computers that they can break into.  Whatever you were doing about
> spam and viruses and nasty websites can remain the same.
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Debbie
> 

In general, I have found that allot depends on the ISP and what they 
believe is good service.

My ISP now provides a combined modem/router/firewall.  It is a 
customized version of the D-Link 604.  I had two issues.

The first issue was that the router/ISP auto negotiate software would 
only work in IE.  This required a phone call to the ISP.  The normal 
Windows only comments but we worked it out.  The CSR used Linux at home.  :)

The second issue was that there was no MAC address for the WAN link.  It 
was supposed to clone the MAC for the computer connected.  I called 
customer support as this was not an option as the laptop would be used 
on some direct connections to the net from various locations at times.

One benefit of using a router is that they are usually the easiest 
method to configure to work with the ISP Windows centric configuration. 
  It also allows you to make any add's moves or changes without 
contacting the ISP to change a MAC address registration.

I would have preferred to stay with a separate modem/router but that was 
not an option.  I do get to keep the modem/router if I leave my present 
ISP though.

-- 
Robin Laing