Networking three Macs.

[zaxcom]

I have a three machine network in my home. My G4 tower runs OSX, My wife's iMac runs 9.2.2, and my kids G3 runs 9.1. For various reasons I am keeping the machines running 9.x that way and can not upgrade them to X at this time.

So here is the real question. I currently network the three machines using AppleTalk. I realized that the 9.x machines can also network using TCP/IP by using the shareway extension. Which is the better protocol to use for networking these machines? Is one faster or more reliable?

What are your ideas?

Thanks,

Zax

 

[thoule]

IP is generally prefered. It should be a little faster. As for reliability, not that much better.

One thing to be aware of, if these computers are just configured to be on their own isolated network (we're not talking one machine has an Internet connection), then they may be using IP already. Macs, as most desktop computers, will pick an IP address for it's local network use.

Next time you connect to the server, click on the mounted volume and click 'get info'. There you may see "connected via tcp/ip..." or a similar message.

You don't have to click the 'server ip address' button in the chooser to connect via IP.

There may be some restrictions on this (like the server box has to be OS X and TCP/IP may been to be either configured manually or via DHCP- they just all need to be on the same subnet. I can post more info if you need it, but hopefully, that'll get you started.

 

[zaxcom]

All of the machines are linked by a Linksys Router and share a cable modem. All of the machines see the internet thru the router. My sons machine is also used as a gaming host on GameRanger, and several ports on the router have been opened and forwarded to his machine to allow the hosting.