From: Randall Parker 

I have a WinXP laptop that has just one ethernet jack.  I want to do file sharing
between the laptop and my Linux boxes. I'm wondering whether it is too risky to have
that laptop ethernet jack used for both internet access and local access at the same
time.

These computers all plug into the same Netgear ProSafe VPN firewall. My impression is
that their local traffic won't go out on the internet.  Don't all the boxes route
their packets first to the hub's gateway address if they want to go out onto the
public internet?

I also have a software firewall on the WinXP box. Do I need to lower that firewall in
order to do network neighborhood file sharing?  I see in the Windows
Firewall settings in the Exceptions tab I have checked "File and
Printers".

Also, if one wants to run SAMBA on a Linux box does that make the Linux box show up
in Network Neighborhood or do I have to find it in a different way?

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5