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	Cheap Internet Sharing! by Ken Knight IMPORTANT UPDATE This applies to the 360 Network only: Starband has blocked tcp2http from routing data through their HTTP Proxy servers.  Actually something to understand here is that not only does this affect tcp2http, but any program that tries to route non-cern based http commands through the router, these programs include Socks2http and any program that has the option to connect through an HTTP server such as ICQ. The work around for this in tcp2http is to go into the config screen and place a checkmark in the "Bypass proxy server" option.  This will only work if the tcp2http copy you are using is located on the 360 connected computer. Starband is stating that the HPA servers were not meant to handle anything other than HTTP traffic, thus the additional load that tcp2http is putting on these servers is having a negative impact on those who are merely trying to browse the Internet.  Most of this additional load appears to be from those who are downloading large binaries from the newsgroups. Starband has already implemented these changes, so this is a done deal.  Remember you will still be able to use tcp2http by checking the "Bypass Proxy" in the config screen. This article is mainly geared toward those users who are running Win98/ME on the 360 connected machine.  This can be used with RJ45 or USB. So you've got your small network setup, you're using Win98/ME and you really don't won't to put out any money on a third-party product to allow the other computers on your network access to the Internet.... No problem! There is a piece of software that gets installed by Starband's software installation called the RPA (Remote Page Accelerator).  Unless you force the icon to show in the icontray, you'll never really know this application is running.  There are 3 ways to tell the RPA to show it's icon in the icontray.  You can manually edit the registry, download PBSI (Planet Bandwidth Show Icon) and run it, or download Kenneth Kovacs Icon360.exe.  My recommendation is to use the Icon360, as it will also force the Netgain 2000 Manager to show up in the icontray. Now, getting back to the RPA, this little application is a full blown HTTP proxy server.  You can go to any computer on your network, open Internet Explorer, go to "Tools / Internet Options / Connections / LAN Settings..." and place a check mark in the "Use proxy" checkbox.  Then click the "advanced" button. As noted in the graphic above, you'll put the IP address of the computer that is connected to the 180/360 in the HTTP, Secure and FTP fields and put in 9877 for the port. The entry made in the exceptions list is there because I run local servers that I need access to, and if it were not there and I tried to access http://192.168.0.1 the request would get sent out to the Internet and never access the local server. Then click OK all the way back out.  At this point you should be able to reach just about any site on the net.  So you've got full browsing capability.  By the way, you can also implement this setting on most other browsers, such as Netscape and Opera. Ok, we've got browsing, but what about email?  Here is where you will have to install some type of proxy that will work with the email protocols which are called "pop" and "smtp".  Since this article is about "cheap" connection sharing we're going to be using tcp2http also written by Kenneth Kovacs which is an excellent program to accomplish this task with. To get email up and working you'll start by downloading, installing and then running tcp2http.  Click here to download it.  You'll install tcp2http on the machine that is connected to the 180/360.  Once you've accomplished that you need to determine if you need to retrieve mail from servers other than those provided by Starband.  If all you need is access to Starband mail accounts, then tcp2http is already setup and ready to go.  For this article we've determined that all we need access to are Starband based email accounts. Now that it's running you should see it in the icontray similar to below: At this point we need to go to a client computer and open up Outlook Express.  Note that while we're covering Outlook Express in this Article, you can use whatever email client you would like, but the settings may be different. Once you have Outlook Express up, click on "Tools / Accounts" and then select the "Mail" tab.  Here, you'll want to double click on your Starband account to bring up its properties.  Once the properties window is up, select the "Servers" tab. In here, you'll point both your incoming and outgoing server to the address of your 180/360 connected machine.  In this example the address is 192.168.0.1. This is the only changes you'll need to make in Outlook Express. So click "OK" all the way back out to Outlook Express's startup screen.  At this point, you're ready to test your setup, so click "Send and Receive" and let's see what happens.  If everything is setup according to this article you should be able to Surf the web and send and receive email from your client computers connected to your small network. For a lot of people this is all they will ever need.  Because of tcp2http's flexibility you can easily communicate with other email servers, ftp servers, etc.  To get a better understanding of this I recommend you watch the on-line video tutorial on setting up tcp2http.  It covers adding additional mail servers. This is not a firewall by any means, I would still recommend you look into one of the many firewalls available.  If you wanted to continue to stay with the "Free" side of things, check out ZoneAlarm's free version. Also it is worth mentioning that you can use a proxy application from AnalogX that is also free. You might ask, "What are the advantages to this setup vs a third-party product?".  Well, for starters it's cheap, it's stable because it doesn't hook into your O/S with low level drivers, AND it's written to take advantage of the RPA if needed.  Currently there are no other freeware programs that are written to do this. By all means, feel free to let me know if you encounter difficulty or have questions regarding this setup. KenKnight@starband.net	DISCLAIMER: Use this information at your own risk.
Updated: 10/2/01 7:38pm	Copyright © 2001 Help Consulting