Hello, If I plug a rj45 cable from a cable modem into a 24 port Cisco switch, will that give me Internet access accross the remaining 23 ports? Do I need to use a "flipped" cable between the cable modem and the switch or can it be a straight cable? Thanks!

Depending on your ISP, their setup, and their policies, it may provide an IP Address to every device plugged into your switch. Note that most residential cable ISP's only provide you with one public IP Address which is included in your monthly price. Using the setup you have noted, depending on the ISP's setup and procedures, may violate your terms. What you should do is purchase a SOHO router and plug it's WAN/Internet port directly into your cable modem. Then, plug your Cisco switch into one of the switch ports on the SOHO router. This is simply cascading switches.

If I plug a rj45 cable from a cable modem into a 24 port Cisco switch, will that give me Internet access accross the remaining 23 ports? Not without proper configuration of the switch and enough IP's from your ISP to go around as Smitty pointed out. Personally, I wouldn't do it this way myself even if I had enough IP's........let me rephrase that, I haven't done that myself. I have a 24 port Cisco 2900 XL at home that I use. I go through a SOHO router, then my OpenBSD based router/firewall before I go into the switch. The simple reason for that is security. A switch provides no firewall type protection and you really want your network behind a firewall. Also, your switch isn't likely to provide NAT or DHCP....which is why both Smitty and I said to get a SOHO router. It will provide the firewall, NAT and DHCP to your LAN. Do I need to use a "flipped" cable between the cable modem and the switch or can it be a straight cable? A straight through cable should work nicely. Crossover cables are only required when connecting like devices. Which is to say, PC to PC, switch to switch etc, and a modem isn't a switch. Smitty - just FYI: Then, plug your Cisco switch into one of the switch ports on the SOHO router. This is simply cascading switches. Right idea, wrong definition. This is "daisy chaining" switches. Cascading is what you do when you are creating a "stack" of managed switches. A stack being a group of switches joined and configured in such a way that they act as a single unit. I'm presently in the middle of an evergreening project. We're farming out all our old Cisco switches in favor of some very very nice Nortel Baystack 5510's and 5520's. For our data center I'm creating stacks to replace the single switches. With the Nortel's you use the cascade ports and cascade cables to do this. Unit 1 (the "base" unit) cascades down into Unit 2's "cascade up" port. Unit 2's "cascade down" port goes to Unit 3's "cascade up" and so on until you get to the very last unit in the stack which is then cascaded "down" to Unit 1's "cascade up" port. Daisy chaining is when you're just going from LAN port to LAN port as in the above case (SOHO router LAN port to port on Cisco). The down side to daisy chaining is the more unit's daisy chained, the less bandwidth is available to units furthest from the first unit in the daisy chain. Oh, and in this case, I recommend a crossover cable to connect the SOHO router to the Cisco. You could use a straight through I'm sure (depending on what model Cisco) but it's always best to stick with the standards in any case.

Thanks a lot! A lot of very useful info..thanks for taking the time!!