Falcon 4 and LinkSys Configuration
LinkSys Basics:
Let me start by giving you a brief overview of how the LinkSys router works then we will go into specific installation instructions for your setup.
To understand how the LinkSys works first you have to understand how a normal computer to computer conversation happens. So first lets talk about two computers talking WITHOUT any LinkSys in the way. You have an IP address assigned to your machine (like a telephone number), when you call another computer it dials their IP address (phone number) and their computer answers and communications begin, Simle huh.
Now lets talk about how the LinkSys works in this communications without trying to confuse you too much. Remember the phone number (IP Address) your computer had assigned to it? Now that phone number is assigned to the LinkSys router and not your machine anymore. The LinkSys gives your machine another IP address to use and he handles (forwards) ALL the call connection (dialing) and conversation between other computers and yours. Think about each computer not knowing the other ones phone number anymore and only the LinkSys knows how to talk to each of them. He has to forward ALL the communications between the two machines.
Figure 1, is a simple design of what my home network looks like from a physical connection standpoint.
Firgure 1
Figure 2, shows a standard configuration on the back of the LinkSys router on a normal cable connection hookup. The cable modem always goes in the “WAN Port” and the local PCs plug into the “Local Ports”. You will unlikely need to use the Uplink port unless you have more than 4 PCs to connect (if you are that sick of an individual you probably don’t need this explanation anyway). J
Figure 2
Now this document by no means is to explain how to setup your LinkSys to make normal browsing work. I am assuming by now you have configured your Linksys and ARE ABLE to browse the internet from the machine you are wanting to connect with Falcon to play. If you are NOT able to browse the internet from your Falcon machine you FIRST have to work that issue out with your provider and LinkSys.
Configuring the
LinkSys and Falcon for game play:
IMPORTANT: I hate to keep saying this but in these instructions I am ASSUMING you are already connected to the internet with your Linksys setup and browsing the internet just fine from your falcon machine. Your Physical setup should look very similar to what you see above (maybe not as many machines).
Ok, lets get started with getting you back in the cockpit then. Fist, lets connect to your Linksys router from your browser. You should have already done this a few times during the installation of the Linksys but if not, open your browser and in the address box type this http://10.0.0.1 (then hit enter) assuming 10.0.0.1 is the internal IP address of your LinkSys router. If you are unsure of the IP address the go to the start menu / run and type “winipcfg” in the window that opens look for the default gateway IP address this should be the LinkSys’s IP address, use it.
Now once you are logged onto the LinkSys go to the status page and it should look like figure 3 (different information of course).
Figure 3
Notice the two sections LAN and WAN. LAN refers to the internal network ONLY seen by your machines internal to your home network and WAN refers to what all the machines on the Internet see. What is important here is the IP address under the WAN section, so write it down now. In my case the IP address I’m writing down is 24.37.2.250.
You will also need the IP address of your falcon machine if you do not know it then go to start/run and type “winipcfg” hit enter and it should open up a window that has your IP address contained in there.
Next, click on the “Advanced” tab on the top of this page and then click on the forwarding tab. You should see a page similar to figure 5 below.
Figure 5
As you can see from above I have setup two forwarding ranges that are for falcon. You need to make your configuration look the same as figure 5 with the exception of the IP address (10.0.0.2) should be your machines IP address. Once you have this done click on apply wait for a confirmation of the save and then shut down the browser.
That’s it for the LinkSys configuration, pretty simple huh now we just need to setup falcon to be able to talk through the LinkSys. This is pretty simple and only need command line additions for it to work. The two command line switches that need to be added are the –hostidx <n> and the –ip <n>. So lets talk about each one and how to configure them.
Fist, hostidx is only for machines that have multiple NIC (Network Interface Cards) cards but this doesn’t necessarily mean physical NIC cards you could have multiple host without a physical card being present. So lets verify first if you require the hostidx setting. Go into DOS by using start/run and if 98 or ealier type “command” and hit enter if XP then type “cmd” and hit enter. This will open a DOS window, now type this “cd c:\microprose\falcon4” I am assuming you installed falcon into the default directory if not use the directory you installed flacon into. Now type “netcheck” and it should show you something similar to figure 6.
figure 6
Notice the “..ComIPHost IDGet 0:” in figure 6 this tells me that my hostidx setting should be set to “0” and not “1”.
Now lets talk about the –IP address setting for your command line. This is the most confusing for people to understand how and why it is used so let me try and break it down into simple terms.
Basically, remember me telling you about your computer needing to know the phone number of the other machine it was talking to and visa versa. Well, now the LinkSys is doing ALL the talking for your machine and just relaying what is being said (YES even if you use the DMZ option in the LinkSys). So when Falcon starts talking to the host computer it tells the other computer what phone number he needs to use to be able to talk back to you. If you by default do not put the –IP address switch in your command line your computer will send the IP address assigned to your machine to the host falcon computer. Now the host machine is trying to talk to an IP address that is NOT being seen but on your local home network. You HAVE to tell the other host falcon machine to talk to the LinkSys IP address and not your machines IP address. You do this type using the –ip address command line switch. The IP address you place in there is the one you wrote down from the LinkSys status page, remember the WAN: IP address from Figure 3. So your command line setup should look something similar to mine in figure 7 shown below.
Once you have this configured and and saved then your falcon should work just fine. Please let me know any modifications or suggestions you might have to make this a little more easily to understand.
Thanks,
Dale “Mustang” Brown
FreeBirds NA VFS