How can I set up a Local Area Network without a router?

Question

I have a reliance bandwidth connection and I want to set a local area network without using a router. How can I do this?

Answer 1

You can do it with an ethernet switch, it will be more work than with a router.

See http://compnetworking.about.com/od/homenetworkhardware/f/routervsswitch.htm and this http://www.duxcw.com/faq/ics/diffrout.htm for more info.

Answer 2

You could use a token ring configuration, but then you would need a media access unit which performs the same basic function as a router. If you want Ethernet, you would need a switch as bryan said, which again, performs the same basic function as a router. In any case, if you want more than two devices to be connected, then you need some sort of device to route the packets. You may be able to find some sort of esoteric network topology that allows several devices to be connected directly, but I doubt it since that would cause problems if any one of them has a problem, is shut down, etc; that is why you need a separate device.

If you only need two, then you can connect them directly with a patch-cable like Kevin suggested, a direct-cable connection like with a serial Interlink cable, or special USB cables.

Answer 3

A crossover ethernet cable will allow two machines to send IP packets to one another without the need for a router, a hub, or a switch between them, but ethernet over twisted pair is strictly point to point, so you can't do something weird like wire together a couple of sockets and pretend that it is a hub.

Maybe being in India you can still get 10b2 coax network cards, and if so then you can set up a relatively slow LAN by daisy chaining the coax cable from one machine to the next, but as I remember it coax was extremely time consuming to troubleshoot. A break anywhere in the daisy chain could knock out a large percentage of the network and tracking down the problem meant crawling under every desk to determine whether or not the ethernet carrier was making it to that machine.

To get a couple of additional machines connected you could use additional network cards and configure your computer to route packets between the ports. On the whole though I'd recommend against it; routers, switches, and hubs are by far the easiest and fastest way to set up a LAN.