Router setup - without broadband connection?

Look in the PDM manual to find the default IP address and username and password. You'll get to a set up screen which will allow you to manually set up the device.

Sorry, the user manual in PDF format.

You could connect the two PCs together in an ad-hoc network without using a router. You could even share a single dialup connection with the other PC via ad-hoc.

This refers to one PC having a high speed connection, but that doesn't matter. You could share a dialup connection.

Now that you have a router, you could ignore the ad-hoc stpes, but use that page as a guide for sharing a dialup connection.

Did you try not doing any setup? Each PC should be able to connect via WiFi, and then file sharing would be strictly a Windows task.

Generally, the "included software" isn't needed.

For a default DLink, open a web browser to http://192.168.0.1 the user name is admin, the password is blank. You should set your internet connection to a Static IP address, 192.168.1.1 would be good. That would be different from the default for the local side, and setting the address prevents the router from looking for an address from the internet side, which it will never find. The setup does require something to be selected for internet.

I have run routers with no connection on the "Internet" side.

You could then continue with tasks like changing the password, setting WiFi access security to WPA2 if your PCs support it, maybe changing the channel, setting the SSID to something that indicates that this is a private network, and some other optional items.

The wireless part of the router is doing you no good, so why even be bothered with it at this time.

If both machines have wire NICS (Network Interface Cards), then just get some network cable using the RJ45 jack type and plug the machines into the LAN ports of the router. You don't have to configure the router that much.

But at this point, you can do a little configuration of the router like changing the User-Id and password and setting some kind of WAP code on the wireless side so someone cannot easily join your network on the wireless side and attack the machines connected by wire, because the machine are sharing resources.

The sharing of resources with the machine is a piece of cake, because the sharing of resources is based on the configuration of the Windows O/S and sharing resources between machines, no matter if it's wire to wire, wireless to wireless or wire to wireless using the router.

Any personal FW's you're going to need to configure them to open up the Windows Networking ports or you just disable the PFW, until you figure out how to open the ports on the PFW for sharing of resources.

You might want to consider hardening the O/S to attack a little bit, since that can be attacked on the wireless side with the machine being connected wired or wirelessly.

Also some wireless security, you'll want to look at. Sharing of resources between the two O/S(s). The Windows Networking ports that you'll open to the on the PFW and not the router. The PFW may have an auto setting to open those ports.

's_port_445_in_w2k_xp_2003.htm You really don't need the router's cd to do anything, you just go to the router's admin screen using browser, using the router's Device IP to access it.

Great, thanks for all the feedback! I'm trying to connect to the router through my browser and configure it that way, like a few of you suggested. It hasn't worked yet, but I'll play with the internet/firewall settings more tomorrow and see what happens. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Thanks again!!!

If you're trying to do this with a wireless connection, then you may have some problems with just making a wireless connection. You should be using a wire connection on a LAN port to configure the router for wireless connections with wireless machines.

You should always have a machine that can connect to the wire/wireless Access Point router that uses a wire connection to the router, as you can have problems on the wireless side that you may need to trouble shoot. If you got a problem on the wireless that's preventing a connection for a wireless machine, then you have to go with a wire connection.

A FW works in two ways, you can manually open inbound ports on the FW to allow unsolicited inbound traffic through the FW to the machine.

The case of opening those Windows network ports on the PFW. Traffic from a machine on the LAN (Local Area Network) can reach another computer on the LAN that can share resources, with both FW(s) with their respective ports for networking manually opened or auto opened, a setting on the PFW configuration, which must be enabled.

The other way a FW works is if any program on the machine behind the FW sends outbound traffic to a remote machine on the LAN and that other machine is not blocking the inbound traffic to it, the port is open on the FW on the remote computer. The machine and its FW that sent the outbound traffic to the remote machine, its FW will open the inbound ports automatically for the machine that sent the outbound traffic and allow the inbound traffic back.

That's called a solicitation for traffic and the FW on the machine will allow all inbound traffic back to the FW, if a solicitation has been made by sending out bound traffic. All unsolicited inbound traffic is blocked.

Allowing unsolicited inbound traffic, which is the case of opening those ports for the Windows networking between the machines manually, must done to allow unsolicited through the FW on the ports, because each machine is not initiating the solicitation for that traffic by sending outbound traffic and the FW would block that unsolicited inbound traffic coming to it.

In your case of the machine behind the PFW on the LAN, the FW is not blocking any traffic either way inbound or outbound, since the browser on the machine has made the solicitation and the router is sending back inbound to it.

So the PFW I don't think is the issue, but you can drop it, if you like. The problem with the PFW will come-up when trying to make the machines contact each other on the networking if the FW(s) are not configured properly.

BTW, the router works in the same way as the PFW. Solicited traffic from a machine that has sent outbound to a remote IP a Wide Area Network-IP or WAN IP, the router will open the inbound port to allow the traffic to reach the machine. Any unsolicited inbound traffic coming to the router is blocked.

Sometimes you may have to open a port on the router to allow unsolicited inbound traffic to reach a machine. It's called port forwarding.

Of course, you would need to open the same ports on the PFW in order for the unsolicited inbound traffic coming through the router to reach the computer.

Keep the machine out of the DMZ.

Finally!! I got my own computer on the network. It took a lot of fiddling around, but I somehow stumbled upon it. My girlfriend's computer is still not working, but that's due to a network card driver issue....a completely unrelated issue.

I've been trying to set a static IP address on the router. When I try to do this, it asks for a subnet mask, and will not save the address without one. What exactly is this subnet mask and why does the router need one? I tried a default number (255.255.255.0), but it wouldn't accept it.

You friend is Google.

What is DHCP and why you should be using it on the router? You enable DHCP on the router and set your computer to *Obtain an IP Automatically* and don't use a static IP, for now. A static IP is not going to save you from being attacked on the wireless side, as they can attack you anyway using a DHCP or static IP on the router to access your network.

If the router has a syslog feature, then enable it and use Wallwatcher. You should not fly around in the Internet, when you're able to do it, blind to the traffic coming to and leaving the network.

And if you're talking about using a static IP in the router's setup to the ISP, then the router is not connected to an Broad Band or DSL network, which you should be using *Obtain an IP from* the ISP's DHCP server.