ICS Application Development
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8/28/2008
Internet connection sharing (ICS) is a collection of technologies and services that connect networked computing and information devices to the Internet through a single Internet connection. ICS provides sharing of a single Internet connection by allowing a device that runs the Windows Embedded CE operating system (OS) to act as a gateway between the Internet and a local area network (LAN). The gateway device uses one network connection for the Internet connection and another network connection for the connection to the local network.
The following illustration shows the relationship between the local area network (in this case, a home network), the gateway device, and the Internet.
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ICS provides the following capabilities:
Automatic configuration of local-area addressing information through a subset of services provided by a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server
Automatic support for name resolution without reconfiguration through a Domain Name System (DNS) proxy
Support for Internet address sharing through network address translation (NAT)
Demand-dial routing of packets to and from the Internet through the use of auto dial
Note
In topics related to ICS, outbound describes Internet Protocol (IP) traffic from the LAN or the ICS gateway to the Internet. Inbound refers to IP packets arriving from the Internet.
In This Section
- Gateway Logging
Provides details on how Gateway Logging writes various system events to a log file on the Gateway device.
- Network Address Translation
Describes how NAT allows an Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) gateway device to provide devices on a network with access to a public network.
- Auto Dial for ICS
Describes how auto dial attempts to dial a preset phone book entry without user intervention, when the device is not connected to a network.
- NAT Editor
Describes the types of protocols that OEMs need to create a specialized NAT editor for.
- DHCP Allocator
Describes how ICS can configure clients on the network automatically by using DHCP.
- Multiple Public Interface Support
Describes how Internet connection sharing supports multiple interfaces.
- DNS Proxy
Describes how the DNS proxy makes name resolution transparent from the point of view of devices on the network
Related Sections
- Internet Connection Sharing
Describes how Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) enables multiple computing and information devices on a network to connect to the Internet through a single Internet connection
- ICS Registry Settings
Provides a list of ICS Registry Settings.