a qestion for you guys and gals

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the building i live in has an inbuilt wired net work whith each fllat having a mac address filtered network socket. now i was wondering if it was possible to set up a private network that connected to the building network through one card (mac address) and still allow my laptop access to the internet.
i reckon its possible but could do with some ideas, any help much apreciated.

 

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Don't see why not...

 

If I am understanding the quesiton right, you have socket in your room, which is patched into a building network right? and you want to "piggy back" onto this network via plugging into the NIC on your laptop and then hopefully access the internet?

if thats what you are attempting, whether or not you access the net depends entirely on firstly what type of network is running, i.e. dhcp blah blah, and even if there is a gateway which will actually allow you outside etc.

For me, the question is a bit vague - but perhaps one of the pro's on here will be able to provide you with a little more concrete info

Best thing to do is just go for it and see if it works

 

An interesting building! Do tell more about the set up

 

Hmm, we need more info really, the more info the better help you will receive. Maybe you should talk to the person that manages the building and find out what system is in place and how you are billed for the service etc.

When you say private *network* are you talking about more than one computer?

Presumably there is a gateway to the Internet via this wall port?

If so, and you wanted to keep your network private from others in the same building, you would need a firewall between the building network and your private LAN - ISA (trial version) or any other dedicated firewall could handle that job nicely.

 

I'd guess, from the description, that the building system will only allow one Ethernet connection per port.

If this is the case then I'd suggest that to get a network going on the port will involve what is commonly refered to as a 'cable router'.

Harry.

 

Agreed - its got to be a cable line running into the building and being presented into each apartment for use. Problem is, you probably won't be able to stick a separate cable router on it as I'd imagine if the complex shares bandwidth then it's more likely all routed through a cable router already.

Of course, I could be wrong - perhaps the cable company in your area has a 'mini head end' that serves your entire building (I suppose this would be economical if you had a building with more than a certain number of potential clients), in which case you should be able to plug a cable router in there and get an IP address from DHCP via DOCSIS.

Borrow a cheap cable router from a friend (one of those with a built-in switch so it has a WAN port and some LAN ports too) and plug it in, then try plugging a box in 'behind' the router (i.e. plug an ethernet cable into the WAN port on the router and a machine onto one of the LAN ports)

If you've been told that the socket is MAC filtered, its pretty easy to change the MAC address of any NIC you choose - if thats what you want to do let me know and I'll walk you through it.

 

He may not be able to use a cable router... but what's to prevent him from using a *normal* router? Packets come in to a router interface (which has a MAC address)... packets get routed out another interface to his internal network.

 

first of thanks for the replys so far. let me go into a bit more detail ( or as much as my hangover will allow)
what i was hoping to do was set up a network with the following components
a four port router
a small server running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
my main pc
and my lap top which i use for college work

now if my thinking is correct if i set up my server as a web server and a file sever the building network should only see the server and not the other parts of the private network.

 

Tru dat, but I think, unless I'm reading it wrong, that there is a cable line going into the building - most likely from Telewest/NTL/Virgin or whatever the hell they're calling themselves these days. Cable usually takes the form of a single signal going into a premises - with a single IP address associated with it. There's nothing to stop him from sticking a router on the end that comes out of his apartment, but I'm guessing that he'll be sharing his 'public' IP with everyone else in the building - although, as I said earlier, I might be wrong - maybe there's a 'mini UBR' serving the complex he lives in and each apartment has its own dedicated connection feeding back into a 'main' router.

Of course, re-reading the question properly I realise this probably isn't what Farmer was asking anyway!

 

You're getting confused here. What you want, basically, is to set up a home network, right? But you're worried about only being able to use one machine because of the restrictions on a single MAC address?

First up, you just need to buy a cheap little broadband router (either DSL or Cable, depending on what your service is based on). That router will act as the single MAC address that is 'seen' by the service entering your apartment. From there, you can pretty much do whatever you want 'behind' the router - you could theoretically run a network with fifty different subnets and 500 machines on it because the only MAC address that would be registered with the Telco is the one directly connected to the line (i.e. your router)

The part about your web server/file server is a red herring - you'd set these up behind the router so that they're not exposed to the Internet and, if you wanted/needed to access them publically you'd do it via NAT on the router

 

me head must have been up me ass last night and was defo this morning went back to bed got up agin around about an hour ago and whithin 20 mins had the bloody lot sorted. ah well back to the studying before more beer tonight

i'll say tanks again guys

 

Yes, he may be sharing his public IP with everyone in the building... but that's OK. His outbound requests will be returned to the cable modem with the public address, which will be forwarded to his router, which will then be forwarded to the correct computer on his own private network.

 

Yeps - like I said, when i re-read the question i realised I was getting caught up in the whys and wherefores of Farmer wanting his own WAN IP when clearly that wasn't the case! That's what ya get for posting too quick at 1:00 in the AM...

 

If you are setting up a web server for an intranet then you shouldn't have any problems - but if you want to publish your web site to the Internet then you might run into difficuties if the building only has one public ip address.

If you are able to set up a web server that is accessible from the Internet, it is wise to put that server in a DMZ and use a proper firewall to manage the traffic.