Home Network Imbroglio

Samyaza

Hello Help and Advice Forum. I'm hoping you can Help and Advise me.

At a recent foreclosure auction,I acquired a fairly new computer, an Ethernet router, and two LaserJet printers. As different people in my household are running different business operations or doing assorted schoolwork, I thought it would be prudent to institute a home network that could be used to share an internet connection and a printer.

So Far, I have been going around in circles, unsure of where to start and what to do.

My Equipment:

-HP Laserjet 2100 TN
-HP Color LaserJet 4550
-Netopia Ethernet Router (4 outputs)
-1 PC running XP Pro SP2
-1 Mac running OS X 10.4.9

In the very near future (2 days) another PC will be added to the mix, so I'll probably only have one printer on the network. Because these were bought at auction, I lack up-to-date drivers/software. How do I go about setting up a shared printer between two PCs and a Mac, while simultaneously sharing an internet connection?

AbsoluteZero

I do so very enjoy the word "imbroglio." So rarely do I have a chance to use it!

From my experience getting PCs to play with Macs is an exercise in futility. Were I you, I would install one of the printers on the Mac. Then I would install the other printer on one of the PCs, put both PCs on the same workgroup and simply share the printer. It's relatively straightforward to set up, the only downside is that the PC the printer is installed on will have to be on in order to print, regardless of which PC you are printing from.

Samyaza

Both the printers have Ethernet ports, as well as sundry ports that I don't have cables/adaptors to hook 'em up straight to the computer with. But so far, my attempts at hooking the printer up to the router and using it through said router have been fruitless. Is there some kind of preference that I'm overlooking that will make the printer show up for the PC?

And yes, Imbroglio is a wonderful word.

langfor6

OS X is pretty much just a front end for BSD, right? I've never used a Mac, so bear with me.

Doesn't Samba work with OS X? I've networked Windows computers to Linux boxes before and it worked just fine. It may be worth looking into.

Samyaza

I'll look into it right now, thanks for the tip.

Ruckus

Ignore all the naysayers about Macs and PC's playing nice. It's definately do-able. Here's a tidbit of instruction to get you started, I'll try and post more later, along with specific responses to questions you may have, but I've got actual work to do as well (I'm a network tech).

First thing will be to hook up the XP machine and the printers to the Ethernet router. The XP machine should get an IP address from the router automatically, along with gateway information. If you run "ipconfig" at a command line, the last line of information returned should say "Default Gateway". If you enter "http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" (where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the gateway IP address) you should be taken to the configuration page for the router. From here you can setup your ISP connection details on the WAN port. You should also inspect any settings for DHCP to determine which addresses are assignable (it's usually something like 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.150). To get the router working on your ISP connection may require a call to the ISP helpdesk, especially if your current connect goes directy to a PC.

Now, download the pdf manuals for the printers, and determine how to print their status pages. Somewhere on the status pages will be the Network Interface information, including IP address. If the printers were set to DHCP/BootP mode, they should have picked up an IP from the router similar to yours. You should be able to put that IP address into a web browser and reach the printer's configuration page. Once there, I recommend setting the printer to a Static IP address (use something outside the Router's DHCP assignable range to prevent potential future IP address conflicts). Write down the IP addresses that you give the printers, you'll need these to install the printers on your XP and Mac workstations later.

Samyaza

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Ruckus. It's nice to have a place to start.

I tried the ipconfig, but it returned a blank for Default Gateway on the "Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection". I'm not sure if that's even the router. Also, when I printed out a configuration page for the printer, the Default Gateway address, IP address, and BootP/DHCP address are all 0.0.0.0

In other news, I can share files between the Mac and the PC with TCP/IP, I can share an internet connection between the Mac and PC with PPPoE, or I can make contact with the printer through Appletalk using the Mac, but only one of these at a time.

Networking Bites.

Almost forgot to mention: Both the Printers have "JetDirect" Ethernet inputs. I've been using them for the Ethernet in. I don't know enough about this...