We've been using dialup for several years now, and I've been given the opportunity to install a wireless connection (some background info: the bandwidth options in my country suck badly, and this is the reason for my weird situation). However, this wireless ISP doesn't offer any POP2 accounts at all, just an internet connection, and my parents who use the pc don't want to lose their email account with the dialup ISP (which is fine for them, because all they do is email-related) as it take ages to find all the email addresses they'd have to sent to to tell of a change in email address. Basically, I want the linux box to be a proxy server that can be accessed by the Windows PC (as this is my main PC) via a network I'd set up, but at the same time also be able to access the net directly via a modem connected to the Windows PC (with XP pro on it). Is this possible? Won't there be a problem having two open connections on the same PC, or would the fact that one connection was being accessed through a network negate this? I think the 3rd party software can be configured to dialup directly and ignore any other connections, but I'm wondering about Windows itself... (btw this is completely new territory for me as I'm rather new to servers and Linux and the such so go easy on me )
Here's what you need: Wireless Access Point -> Router/Firewall/Switch --> Windows Box \-> Linux Box Code (markup): Check the IP address of the router (usually, it's 192.168.1.1, but may be different) and configure your Windows and Linux machines so that their default gateway is that IP address (or just leave them on DHCP and they will be configured automatically). You can probably even get a WAP and a router combined in one box. In this configuration, when you connect to your dial-up connection, the box that has the modem, will work over the dial-up connection and if something's not available, then will fall back onto your wireless link. When you disconnect the modem, everything will go over the wireless link. J.D.
Thanks for the info But if I was busy downloading something and then used the dialup, would i lose the download? That's basically my main concern right now :/
One thing to check on your dial-up machine before investing in wireless is that if it will work properly without the default route assigned to the dial-up connection. Go to dial-up connection properties > Networking > Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) > Properties > Advanced and uncheck "Use default gateway on remote network". What this does is it removes your dial-up connection from the default gateway list, so that all connections that are made explicitly to the dial-up servers, will go through the dial-up adapter, everything else, will go through the standard default gateway (your router and the wireless network). Once you uncheck this checkbox, see if dial-up still works. If it does, should be able to use both, your dial-up and local LAN (connected to the wireless ISP through a router) at the same time. J.D.