Using Windows XP Pro SP2 as a router

[bit]

An illustration makes the question easier to ask:

What gateway and routes must be altered to allow the PCS computer to send and receive mail using the Linksys router.

The DB computer has its registry key HKLM\....\IPEnableRouter set to 1.

The PCS computer has:

route -p add 192.168.50.0 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.254.2

The output from ipconfig and route print from DB and PCS follows.

I am posting this and continuing with teaching myself to read route tables. I am looking for suggestions to speed the process.

If I could "read" route tables I would probably be able to answer my own question.

Dave

# PCS Computer Route Table:
# """""""""""""""""""""""""
#	 ===========================================================================
#	 0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
#	 0x2 ...00 21 9b 87 ed a6 ...... Intel(R) Gigabit
#	 ===========================================================================
#	 Network Destination		  Netmask		Gateway	  Interface  Metric
#				 0.0.0.0		  0.0.0.0  192.168.254.2  192.168.254.1	  20
#			   127.0.0.0		255.0.0.0	  127.0.0.1	  127.0.0.1	   1
#			192.168.50.0	255.255.255.0  192.168.254.2  192.168.254.1	   1
#		   192.168.254.0	255.255.255.0  192.168.254.1  192.168.254.1	  20
#		   192.168.254.1  255.255.255.255	  127.0.0.1	  127.0.0.1	  20
#		 192.168.254.255  255.255.255.255  192.168.254.1  192.168.254.1	  20
#			   224.0.0.0		240.0.0.0  192.168.254.1  192.168.254.1	  20
#		 255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255  192.168.254.1  192.168.254.1	   1
#	 Default Gateway: 192.168.254.2
#	 ===========================================================================
#	 Persistent Routes:
#		 Network Address  Netmask Gateway		Address  Metric
#			192.168.50.0	255.255.255.0  192.168.254.2	   1
#
#	 Windows IP Configuration		Ethernet adapter PLC:
#		 Primary Dns Suffix :			Description . . : Intel(R) Gigabit
#		 Node Type . . . . . : Unknown   Dhcp Enabled. . : No
#		 IP Routing Enabled. : No		IP Address. . . : 192.168.254.1
#		 WINS Proxy Enabled. : No		Subnet Mask . . : 255.255.255.0
#										 Default Gateway : 192.168.254.2
#
# DB Computer Route Table:
# """"""""""""""""""""""""
#	 ===========================================================================
#	 0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
#	 0x2 ...00 17 3f ce c0 5f ...... Realtek RTL8139
#	 0x3 ...00 21 9b 87 ed 84 ...... Intel(R) Gigabit
#	 ===========================================================================
#	 Network Destination		  Netmask		Gateway	  Interface  Metric
#				 0.0.0.0		  0.0.0.0   192.168.50.1  192.168.50.50	  20
#			   127.0.0.0		255.0.0.0	  127.0.0.1	  127.0.0.1	   1
#			192.168.50.0	255.255.255.0  192.168.50.50  192.168.50.50	  20
#		   192.168.50.50  255.255.255.255	  127.0.0.1	  127.0.0.1	  20
#		  192.168.50.255  255.255.255.255  192.168.50.50  192.168.50.50	  20
#		   192.168.254.0	255.255.255.0  192.168.254.2  192.168.254.2	  20
#		   192.168.254.2  255.255.255.255	  127.0.0.1	  127.0.0.1	  20
#		 192.168.254.255  255.255.255.255  192.168.254.2  192.168.254.2	  20
#			   224.0.0.0		240.0.0.0  192.168.50.50  192.168.50.50	  20
#			   224.0.0.0		240.0.0.0  192.168.254.2  192.168.254.2	  20
#		 255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255  192.168.50.50  192.168.50.50	   1
#		 255.255.255.255  255.255.255.255  192.168.254.2  192.168.254.2	   1
#	 Default Gateway:	 192.168.50.1
#	 ===========================================================================
#	 Persistent Routes:
#		 None
#
#	 Windows IP Configuration
#		 Primary Dns Suffix :
#		 Node Type . . . . . : Unknown
#		 IP Routing Enabled. : Yes
#		 WINS Proxy Enabled. : No
#
#	 Ethernet adapter LAN:					 Ethernet adapter PLC:
#		 Description . . . . : Realtek RTL8139	 Description . . : Intel(R) Gigabit
#		 Dhcp Enabled. . . . : Yes				 Dhcp Enabled. . : No
#		 Autoconfig Enabled  : Yes				 IP Address. . . : 192.168.254.2
#		 IP Address. . . . . : 192.168.50.50	   Subnet Mask . . : 255.255.255.0
#		 Subnet Mask . . . . : 255.255.255.0	   Default Gateway :
#		 Default Gateway . . : 192.168.50.1
#		 DHCP Server . . . . : 192.168.50.1
#		 DNS Servers . . . . : 142.x.x.x
#							   142.x.x.y
#

[CoffeeFiend]

One could help you with routing tables (it's really not that hard, providing you know the basics of TCP/IP -- just long, tedious and rather dry), but using two XP SP2 boxes as a routers... Ouch!

You could accomplish the same using a single computer with 3 NICs, even using free options like m0n0wall or pfsense (anything using pf or iptables and such really).

On the Windows side, there are some powerful options, but they're not necessarily cheap e.g. ISA server (now Forefront Threat Management Gateway) onto a Windows server.

But if you really insist, using custom routing tables on each box, it is possible. It would likely work using a single box with 3 NICs too. Never tried that one though.

Either ways, I don't see why you'd setup your network like this. I'd much rather have PLCs (and the HMI touch screen) on their own network, all by themselves, tightly firewalled from everything else (I remember when PLCs had battery backed SRAM packs... and now they got ethernet!)