How to use the bridge function to achieve wired Internet access

I have seen an article on the Internet that uses the Windows XP bridge function to achieve wireless Internet access. My personal opinion is that wireless Internet access has its unique advantages, but as for the current status, wired networks still have incomparable advantages in terms of transmission speed, transmission quality, and price. Therefore, we will introduce the bridge function to achieve wired Internet access and hope to share our experiences with you.

Here, we use multiple computers to share an ADSL Internet connection as an example to introduce the entire connection process. Of course, the connection based on wireless connections and dial-up connections can also be implemented, however, the specific configuration implementation process of wired Internet access is described here.

1 shows the network structure that allows multiple computers to access the Internet at the same time. This structure is similar to that of software such as Wingate, but it is based on the functions provided by the system itself, so I think all aspects are more practical and convenient than software implementation.

Figure 1

As shown in the structure in requirement 1, in addition to the two NICs required for computers directly connecting to the Internet, the other computers need one Nic for connecting to the LAN. If there are only two computers, the connection to the hub can also be omitted, as long as the crossover line is used when the computer is connected to the computer.

Here, the computer connected to the Internet is called a host, and the computer connected to the host is called a client. Here, we take two computers as an example. Of course, the configuration of multiple computers is just repeated client configuration. The host uses Windows 2003 Server. The bridge function is as good as that of Windows XP. The client uses Windows Home XP.

　　Host Configuration

First, configure the host to allow the computer to access the Internet using ADSL. 2 shows the network status after ADSL is configured. There are three icons for local connection in "LAN or high-speed Internet, two of them are the network card icons, and the other is installed when installing ADSL.

In Figure 2, select all three local connection icons in "LAN or high-speed Internet", right-click the selected icon, and select "bridge" in the displayed menu ", the system will prompt that the bridge is in progress, prompting you to install the WAN micro port (PPP over Ethernet protocol), and selecting "continue". After the installation is complete, the "Network Bridge" item will appear, at the beginning, the "Network Bridge" icon had a fork, but it would soon be normal, as shown in the final state 3.

Figure 2 Figure 3

Next we need to set up the broadband connection. After adding a broadband connection at the beginning, the icon "China Netcom 2" in Figure 3 will appear in the "Broadband" field, as we want to share the ADSL connection, right-click "China Netcom 2", select "attribute" from the menu that appears, and then select the "advanced" tab in the displayed dialog box, select "Protect my computer and network by limiting or blocking access to this computer from the Internet" in the "Internet Connection Firewall" option group, select "allow other network users to connect to the Internet through the computer" in "Internet Connection Sharing". This item is required, because you must run other user connections to achieve network connection sharing, the icon after this item is set will become the "China Netcom" icon, and a small hand will appear. The following item sets up a dial-up connection when a computer on my network tries to access the Internet. If the client sends an Internet request to the computer, the system automatically performs the dial-up connection, whether the request is sent by the user or by the computer, be careful when setting this item, because when the webpage is opened and disconnected, in fact, the browser will communicate with the server as needed, which will cause the system to automatically initiate a dial-up connection. Now the configuration of the host is complete.

　　Client Configuration

Open "Network neighbors", click "Set Home or small office network" on the right of the displayed window, enter the wizard, click "Next" in the window, and a dialog box appears, select "this computer is connected to the Internet through another computer on my network or Residential Gateway", click "Next", and then provide the computer name and working group name for this computer, the working group names of all computers on the network should be consistent, and the dialog box shown in 4 is displayed. Here, the Network Installation Wizard installation disks are provided for those systems that are not Windows XP, this is also the advantage of using a wired connection, which can be as backward compatible as possible.

So far, the configuration is complete and the connection between computers is maintained. Any computer needs to be able to trigger the connection on the Internet to complete the Internet connection process, just like directly connecting to the ADSL device, I don't feel the speed difference at all. In the network configuration process, it is very easy to see conceptual or network connection errors, resulting in configuration failure. Therefore, you must follow the steps to pay attention to the status of each network device during the configuration process, if an exception occurs, especially on the host, the system can solve the problem by using the repair function of the Bridge. If the problem persists, you can delete the bridge and reconfigure it.

All the above steps are required. Pay special attention to the consistency between the client and the host, and you do not need to configure an IP address for the computer so that the system can handle the problem on its own, if they are allocated by themselves, they may be superfluous. The above functions can be implemented in Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP, and Windows 2000, but the configuration operations are slightly different, windows 98 can be used as a client based on the installation disk created under Windows XP.