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Latency on the USB NIC? I sure it's worse than anything on a faster bus, but I've never tried to quantify it. The IPNR author has a short write up with some test results. For my home DSL network needs it has worked well enough. I've streamed Daily Show episodes, Youtube HD, and Hulu to a laptop over wifi behind the mini without a problem.

I've hosted IPNR on a number of older Macs over the years, using PCI for the second NIC on a G4 tower, and USB on a G3 iMac and G4 Mini. The iMac required kernel patches for IP over USB and was very flaky. The other two were hassle-free.

Sustworks IPNRX (IP Network Router X) will also do this on a Mac, even over multiple USB NICs on a Mini: http://www.sustworks.com/site/prod_ipnrx_help/html/AlternateRouteHelp.html

1. The most that would have had to be replaced on the iMac G5 would have been a motherboard. Ebay has tons of them. $40 will get ya one. There is even a flat $249 repair service [ebay.com] listed. Do you really think that buying parts from eBay that are scavenged from other, presumably dead iMacs is an enterprise ready solution?

No, but see below.

Considering that nearly ALL PEE-SEE mobos have INTEGRATED ETHERNET on them, do you REALLY think it would be significantly cheaper to fix that problem if it was a PEE-SEE? Yes actually, since the solution for a dead ethernet port on a standard PC is a $15 PCI ethernet card. That's what we do at work, except the ethernet card is free since we harvested them out of the P2/P3 systems that went off to the recyclers a while back.

So, do you really think that scavenging a used card out of a trash pile is an enterprise-ready solution? Capacitors age, people aren't so kind about static protocols with systems heading to the recyclers, et FUCKING cetera...

YOU put your foot in mouth on that one, buddy-o!

And UNlike that PEE-SEE, the iMac could have connected up via WiFi THAT WAS ALREADY IN THE IMAC, and you could have had the guy back up and running in about 1 minute flat. Methinks you are an EE-DEE-OTT. And not all workplaces have wi-fi for security and other reasons. You Mac people sure can be dense.

I knew you would say that. But, since you are doing things like SALVAGING PCI CARDS, I take it you aren't working for the gummint, or even a government contractor, who might have an overriding security concern. But if you can show me a valid reason why a PROPERLY secured WiFi network is somehow a security concern, then I'd agree. Also, didja ever think of trying ONE OF THESE Ethernet -> USB adapters? Seems a LOT cheaper than chucking a whole system, don'tcha think?

On the other iMac: did you just want a nice G5 iMac to sneak out the back door for yourself??? You DID mention that the one with "too many dead pixels" was "ON YOUR DESK" right now.

A DLink Fast Ethernet USB 2.0 DUB-E100 adapter (among others) works without any driver installation under Snow Leopard (same chipset as used in the MacBook Air's ethernet adapter, apparently...) See http://www.sustworks.com/ for a discussion of using Ethernet USB adapters on MacOS.

I'm running Sustworks' IPNetRouter on my new Mini right now. Onboard GigE talks to the local LAN and the USB 2 Ethernet adapter talks to the firewall router and the outside world.

Somewhere around MacOS X.5.6 Server they introduced a new low configuration option that I used on this latest server. As mentioned in an earlier post, I had my new server and its 3 websites up and running in about 10 minutes total time (given an external DNS & Open Directory server on my network. I did not test a completely standalone installation.)

If you really want sound on your keyboard, try KeyClick. Sophisticated one for Mac OS X at http://www.sustworks.com/site/prod_keyclick_overview.html (not tried this; it is very old) Windows at http://www.personalmicrocosms.com/Pages/keyclick.aspx

This isn't going to help much when Apple enters the Sex biz, but there's this $5 utility, Keyclick, that makes typing sounds when you type. I've never used it, but it's interesting.

There's also the Slow Keys setting in the Universal Access pref pane. I just turned it on now for the first time, and it's friggin' annoying. If you try this, be sure to set acceptance delay to short. Yeah, this is really annoying.

Yeah, typing that last paragraph pretty much sucked.

There was also a drop in keyboard replacement for the Ti books that was just like a touch sensitive pad. There was a keyboard printed on it I think. Oh, here it is. The TouchStream MacNTouch. Never used one, but it seems interesting because of some of the other input possibilities (chording, gestures, etc.).

Ah, well. You were making a joke and I got all esoteric on you. Sorry. =)

I can't say that my home network has stress tested it, but someone on their mail list (sustworks.com/site/detailed_search.htm) probably has. I've run it on OS 9 for months at a time, interruped only by #@%^&! power outages. Yep, time for an UPS.

My dad's old Mac ][ci is our firewall/mailserver. The old man originally picked it up at the end of the production run in '93, and handed it down to my wife in '95 (he's on a G4 now). After many years of churning out papers and newsletters, we put it in front of the DSL line loaded with various Sustworks products to protect our metastasizing home network against the likes of you all. Still runs OS 7.6.

Initially, the ci hosted our web server too. But, a PPC 6100 fell in my lap for $5, so I loaded that with Debian, and since then the html cranks out much more reliably.

Something you're missing is that he's not referring to Mac OS X, but to "classic" Mac OS (9.2.2 and lower). All the standard buffer overflow problems are irrelevant on Mac OS classic because the vast majority of apps (and the OS itself) don't use the "standard" libs used everywhere else.

A buffer overflow in zlib means nothing... there was no OS-standard compression library until OS 8.5, and that didn't use anything zlib related (MacBinary+BinHex).

A BSD TCP/IP stack problem is irrelevent as well. Classic Mac OS used a STREAMS-based stack that was then heavily modified. Much better (according to SustWorks.com) and immune to BSD security holes.

Although I appreciate the engineering effort that went into Mac OS X, the classic Mac OS environment still has some signinficant things going for it, some of which were listed in this parent's parent (which isn't Flamebait =( ).

As to the original issue, I now see what the question was. There would be a number of ways to handle this problem. Check out this LowEndMac article for a number of ways to connect LocalTalk and Ethernet physically. As far as converting MacIP to TCP/IP, IPNetRouter handles this itself.

IPNetRouter will run on relatively underpowered Macs, which gives you an extra level of protection, since the MacOS (before MacOS X) doesn't have many ports/services open for attack by default.

If you are planning on having multiple people running networked games in your house, I would recommend caution when thinking about a hardware router. For example, Linksys (among others) has problems when two people in a household play Q3 and want to connect to the same remote gameserver. As was said before, PracticallyNetworked.com is a good place to investigate before buying.

Alternatively, an old Mac IIcx makes a great router. Two NICs and a video card, old 20mb drive, IPNetrouter software, and there you go! Pretty much unhackable, because with System 7.5.5, you can't even address the Mac's file sharing via tcp/ip. I've got just such a beast running our office because our Linksys died. And I'm really cheap.

Really the thing is little more then a FlashROM, an off-brand x86 and of course Lucent's Orinoco PC-Card. The code running it is exemplarily, folks have found lots of goodies in it and Apple's put out several revs. of improvements, but not a PPC to be found.

Since the article talks about flying boxes with MacOS on PowerPC's then clearly the existing AirPort base-station technology is NOT the subject. There'd be nothing in common with either the hardware or the code. It'd be easier to start with a BSD underpinning (MacOS X) or something like Sustainable Software's products (MacOS >X.)

Thus, moderators, please bring down those postings that refer to flying AirPorts.

BTW, a good (though dated) AirPort technology link is http://www.msrl.com/airport-gold

The key to OT performance is to respond to a network interrupt and pass pointers to a STREAMS message up the stack and back down again in less time than it takes to send a 1500 byte Ethernet packet. Since routing occurs at interrupt time, it is not affected by other applications. ... And, its always nice to see the look on people's faces when you explain to them that your Mac is saving the planet by running rings around NT or Cisco routers and is way easier to configure than a linux machine!

The key to OT performance is to respond to a network interrupt and pass pointers to a STREAMS message up the stack and back down again in less time than it takes to send a 1500 byte Ethernet packet. Since routing occurs at interrupt time, it is not affected by other applications. ... And, its always nice to see the look on people's faces when you explain to them that your Mac is saving the planet by running rings around NT or Cisco routers and is way easier to configure than a linux machine!

If you have an old Mac, as I do, load it up with dual Ethernets, Open Transport 1.1.1 or better, and IPNetRouter. It does all the port mapping and filtering you need, and comes with excellent instructions.

The same reason Macs were chosen by the U.S Army will make your old Mac a great firewall: Macs don't hardly have any open TCP/IP ports! Other than the ones you explicitly enable, of course.

I loaded up IPNetRouter on my 6-yr-old Mac and used it both as a firewall for my house and as my primary workstation for over 9 months before I upgraded. It has been extremely reliable (uptimes on the order of weeks ain't bad considering all I do to it) and easy to maintain.

Which is more than I can say for the Linux rig I used for my firewall previously.

One of the cool things about the Mac Shareware community is that there's *tons* of stuff out there that a lot of people don't know about. (Try PureMac.com).

IP masquarading takes about 2 minutes to set up with a cool utility called IPNetRouter avaiable from Sustworks for pretty cheap. (Shareware).

There's a solution for pretty much everything out there on the Mac, if you just know where to look.

(Also, do a search for Virtual on the pure-mac site... you'll find virtual desktops, too!)

There is some utilites for mac to change the MTU in open transport. Sustworks makes a product called OT advanced tuner and there is also tools from apple called OT tuner and OT extra that can do this.

Why don't you just grab Open Transport Advanced Tuner? It'll do that easily, and let you tweak a lot more.

I personally don't mind Apple hiding advanced features like this, as can you imagine what would happen if your average joe user started playing around with low-level OT settings? It's easy enough to just download this little program and tweak them yourself.

Thanks,
Peter

I believe that this 3rd party patch may permit you to change your OT settings to prevent this.

I've also tried installing it on my girlfriend's iMac 266, but must have screwed up my guess at how to describe the iMac's monitor. With my 9600, I just specified my actual monitor model. I plan on doing a fresh install on her machine when I get a chance.

Despite the fact that her iMac benchmarks slightly slower than my 9600, her machine runs Win98 under VPC significantly faster. I suspect the reason is that Connectix (VPC's developers) have done some heavy optimization for the G3/G4, and my 9600 has a PPC 604.

Despite the fact that X is slow, it's still a pretty neat setup. I have our home office connected with 10baseT and I run IPNetRouter under the Mac OS on my 9600. This not only lets our Macs share the same PPP connection simultaneously, but Virtual PC acts as a separate machine, gets its own IP address (via DHCP), and is therefore connected at the same time. That's the one advantage over going dual-boot with LinuxPPC -- I can work in both OSes at the same time on the same machine.

VPC also makes it very easy to move files back and forth between the two environments.

--
Gruber
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The URL for IPNetRouter is http://www.sustworks.com/products/ip nr/ppd1.html