I wish I could say I was surprised that Microsoft's software is behaving this way. Having worked for them, and knowing the people that work for them, I still do find myself surprised. When connecting your Xbox 360 to a network, it isn't simply enough to, you know, connect it. No, you have to actually have it routable. This means that you have to carry internet service, and it means you have to expose your Xbox to whatever nasties lurk out there on the internet.
Let's start off with a fact that isn't quite obvious. I don't have internet service at home. When I do, it's because I mooch off people with open waps. Most of the time, though, it's through work, or the public libraries, or wherever that I bring this invaluable sarcasm and razor-sharp wit. So at home, we have several computers, none of which are really connected to each other, except via wireless connection (all Macs). As it turns out, the apartment I live in is wired with cat 5 (that's "ethernet" for those that don't know), and it's in the walls. Great, I thought, I'll connect my music machine (in one room) to my Xbox (in another room, but hooked up to the tv) via the wall. So, the mini (the music machine) gets its wireless connection (so we can talk to it) via an airport express. This means it's connected via a straight cat5 cable to the airport, which creates its own network. Now, we've added a crossover cable for the WAN port on the airport, connected it to the wall, and on another wall, connected a hub to the cat5 port, with the Xbox plugged into that (we have a PS2 also, a PS3 is in our future, and a Wii, etc).
Right, so everything is plugged in happy. Blinkenlights (oh no he didn't just put a telnet URL in this post, did he?) abound. The Xbox says it's got an IP address. Let's details this quickly:
Mini: 192.168.1.142
Xbox: 192.168.3.14
subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
default route 192.168.1.142
I happen to know that you don't need anything more than that (and you don't even need a default route if you're just using a local network). However, Microsoft not only wants you to have a network that complies with, you know, normal numbers (it won't, for example, take 4/8 numbers as IP addresses or use a 255.255.255.248 mask), but they want you to route out to the internet and to have nameservers and all that good stuff. You can't just connect your Xbox to your network.
In this case, I want it connected because I want to use my television as speakers when I'm in the living room, even though my music is in the other room. I accomplish this normally with Connect360 – you haven't truly enjoyed a good Mech game until you've blown the living shit out of everything listening to Bad Religion's Recipe for Hate. But, in this case, Microsoft's ridiculous demands on connectivity or what is reasonable for people to have in their homes, or even what goals their customers have for their networks, take much greater precedence than, well, common sense. Or, hell, even accepted standards. Like, you know, TCP/IP.
Let's start off with a fact that isn't quite obvious. I don't have internet service at home. When I do, it's because I mooch off people with open waps. Most of the time, though, it's through work, or the public libraries, or wherever that I bring this invaluable sarcasm and razor-sharp wit. So at home, we have several computers, none of which are really connected to each other, except via wireless connection (all Macs). As it turns out, the apartment I live in is wired with cat 5 (that's "ethernet" for those that don't know), and it's in the walls. Great, I thought, I'll connect my music machine (in one room) to my Xbox (in another room, but hooked up to the tv) via the wall. So, the mini (the music machine) gets its wireless connection (so we can talk to it) via an airport express. This means it's connected via a straight cat5 cable to the airport, which creates its own network. Now, we've added a crossover cable for the WAN port on the airport, connected it to the wall, and on another wall, connected a hub to the cat5 port, with the Xbox plugged into that (we have a PS2 also, a PS3 is in our future, and a Wii, etc).
Right, so everything is plugged in happy. Blinkenlights (oh no he didn't just put a telnet URL in this post, did he?) abound. The Xbox says it's got an IP address. Let's details this quickly:
Mini: 192.168.1.142
Xbox: 192.168.3.14
subnet mask: 255.255.0.0
default route 192.168.1.142
I happen to know that you don't need anything more than that (and you don't even need a default route if you're just using a local network). However, Microsoft not only wants you to have a network that complies with, you know, normal numbers (it won't, for example, take 4/8 numbers as IP addresses or use a 255.255.255.248 mask), but they want you to route out to the internet and to have nameservers and all that good stuff. You can't just connect your Xbox to your network.
In this case, I want it connected because I want to use my television as speakers when I'm in the living room, even though my music is in the other room. I accomplish this normally with Connect360 – you haven't truly enjoyed a good Mech game until you've blown the living shit out of everything listening to Bad Religion's Recipe for Hate. But, in this case, Microsoft's ridiculous demands on connectivity or what is reasonable for people to have in their homes, or even what goals their customers have for their networks, take much greater precedence than, well, common sense. Or, hell, even accepted standards. Like, you know, TCP/IP.
Labels: Microsoft, Networking, Strap-On, XBox-360
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