With the increasing popularity of Digital Subscriber Line(DSL) and Broadband/Satellite Internet connections, it can be difficult in understanding the way WinGate will use these types of connections to access the Internet on behalf of its clients.

WinGate has been designed to utilize most types of connections and treats them just like a network card interface (with the obvious difference that this is considered a Internet connection and so not trusted.) The way that WinGate interacts with these DSL/Broadband connections can be generally classed under two types of set-up.

These are:

• Dial on Demand
  Installing the connection hardware on the WinGate server will create a network connection that has its IP address assigned by the ISP every time the connection is used. Some typical examples are USB modems, Dialup DSL/56k modems, some satellite and Cable modem solutions.
  
  
• Online all the time.
  These types of connections are generally only found with Routers or direct Internet connections and there will be a constant public IP address assigned, as this interface is always connected to the Internet.
  (The IP is usually static although depending on ISP practice maybe renewed at regular periods) some typical types are Routers, Frame Relay solutions.

What is important about these two types of Internet connection methods is the way that WinGate treats and configures the Internet interface.

Dial on Demand

With Dial on Demand type connection the modem or Internal card will generally require the users create a Dial up networking connection when it is first installed, just as is the case with an ordinary modem connection.

On start-up, WinGate has been designed to list all dialup networking connections that are available on the WinGate server, in its Dialer configuration found under the System tab in GateKeeper.

To utilize this particular DSL broadband connection type do the following:

1. Open GateKeeper on the WinGate server.
2. Select the Dialer from the System tab.
3. On the Dialer Properties dialog, highlight the appropriate Dial up connection entry and click the Properties button below.
4. On the Connection properties dialog that appears, select the General tab and enter the correct username and password for the connection.
5. Make sure Enable this connection to be used by WinGate check box is ticked.
6. Click OK.
7. Once back to the Dialer Properties general tab make sure the make sure the Connect as required using the connection list check box at the top is ticked.
8. Click OK
9. Save changes in GateKeeper

This will now allow WinGate to utilize this DSL/Broadband connection to access the Internet whenever requested to by a client machine.

On all the time

With these types of connections, WinGate will generally use a separate Network card (interface) to connect to the router or directly to the Internet (External IP address) and so treat this interface accordingly.

To read more about configuring and running WinGate behind a router click here

In the directly connected scenario where the Network card has an External Public IP address assigned (with appropriate ISP Gateway and DNS servers listed in its IP details) then WinGate will already consider it an access point to the Internet and so utilize it for client requests without any further connection configuration required in GateKeeper.

To find out more on how WinGate treats Private and Public Ip addresses click here