How many account can one IP address hold

Hi,
How many accounts can be held by one IP address? If one IP address operate more than one account, is that be allowed?

I mean if 2 accounts (let say My wife & me) run by same computer and IP address, is it ok?

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I just found a policy announced by Linden Lab(at "membership Fees", they say:

" First Basic account is completely free. Additional Basic accounts are available for a one-time fee of $9.95."

What's the meaning of this sentence? that means I need to pay US$9.95 for opening a new account for my wife(using the same computer at home), If I do not pay US$9.95 for the second one, they will block my account, right?
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Thanks
Vailon Voom

I am not sure to your question however here at my office, we have multiple computers with SL on at one time, we all use the same IP so I am guessing it is ok?

May just depend onw hat it is exactly you are doing with those accounts.

-Lazric

An IP (Internet Port) can support a lot of accounts, universities and companies run their intranets linked to a single IP address through a single modem, so in theory, you are only limited by bandwith and Hub connections through your server. Proxy servers use ports to define their existance, Mac addresses is another through Hubs, but ultimately they are all combined to a single IP address (static or dynamic) after leaving the modem, when they reach the ISP (Internet Service Provider) server.

I thought the limit was 5 with 2 as premium. You have to pay additional 9.95 per new account.
My first account was from 2002, I can't reactivate but I still paid for each of the other 2 I owned. One is premium, one is not just in case I can ever reactivate one from 2002.

I don't think there is a limit on accounts per IP address. Would be kinda messy when you have a ISP that changes the IP address every time you log in.

Anyway, I a premium account and my partner a verified account. So that is at least 2

From the TOS, Section 2.4:



To me this means it's pretty random, or at least that LL has qualifiers concerning who can and who cannot have mulitple accounts that they aren't sharing with the rest of the class.

...which isn't even really surprising.

But I don't think they will see a IP number as in "identification method", because there ISPs that give out a different IP number every time you log in (my old ISP used to do this)

Sharing the same IP address, in itself, is not a limiting factor in account limits, as far as I know. Someone who has been found to be abusing the use of multiple accounts might be retsricted, based on a number of identifying factors which may or may not include IP Address, but which is unlikely to be solely based on IP address. The more likely limiting factor right now seems to be that they won't allow multiple accounts to share the same e-mail address.

From my personal knowledge of individuals I have observed using SL from a single computer, I can say you can have at least 8 different accounts logging in from the same computer and same IP address, with no issues, as long as you don't use the accounts inappropriately. I've watched 8 different accounts log in, one afetr another, within minutes of each other on the same computer, without a reboot or any other action that would change the IP address.

WOW! now that's a SUPER computer! where do i get one?

No limit with one ip_addr, but it will cause attention while admin find lots of subsequent connections form one_addr.

If you use a router/modem like I do and have 4 PC's, then check the IP address for any one of them, they will all be the same, because beyond the firewall built into the router and that fact I only have one outside line to the exchange, I am doing no more than IP sharing... nothing new there... business's and education departments do excactly that and have done for years.. the single connection from the modem links to the ISP's exchange to a server node, which dynamically asigns you a IP, unless you have paid for a static one which few can afford or need... So LL cannot reliably use a IP as a means of identification... even IF they did.. with a little knowledge, you can change your routers IP address anyway.

If they banned an account at the IP end of the system, the danger is, it can be bypassed easily and the could ban 100's of accounts in one foul swoop, therefore being totally ineffective.

BTW, I can run 5 accounts per PC if I wanted to, which I don't.

if you're going to have two instances of SL running through the same IP address AT THE SAME TIME, I recommend setting the "port" in your SL preferences.
I found that having two accounts logged in at the same time in the same region caused one of the accounts to drop out unless I set this port manually.

*laughs* That was on an original issue Mac Mini, which had a puny 32 MB VRAM video card and is only barely capable of logging in and using SL at all. Yet it can, and has, run as many as 5 concurrent logins. (I wanted to see how far I could push the silly thing). It will run two or three concurrent sessions with acceptable performance, but nothing spectacular. The 8 logins was one at a time, sequentially - log on, check messages, log off... lather, rinse and repeat.

That sounds more like a router issue.. I have run 5 accounts from the same PC and had them all in the same parcel... it was simply an experiment to push the system to a limit.. I had no issues with accounts dropping or setting ports manually. You may want to check your ISP.. might even be a limitation they impose. I am assunming you are using a router and not using a single PC acting as a server for other PC's to connect to (connection sharing)?

Just use another email address to avoid the charge

Yes its 2 or more PC's through a gateway router... to my ISP... to Agni. We've had other problems in the household that I think are related to the router. So, thanks. that's a big clue.

IP does not stand for Internet Port. It stands for Internet Protocol. TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol and TCP/IP are the protocols that just about everything on the Internet uses to communicate (along with a variety of other protocols).

What's the method for logging a second on a Mac. Do you just duplicate the app? Curious how this works.


thanks

On a Mac, first you duplicate the SL app. Then you right click on it (option-click with a one-button mouse), and select "Show Package Contents". In the window that opens, you need to open the Contents folder, and inside that, open the "Resources" folder.

In the Resources folder is a file named "arguments.txt". Open it and add the following line (It may be an empty file at first):

-multiple

Then save the file and launch copies of that modified app. Each copy can run a concurrent session.

I usually add more to my arguments.txt file:

-multiple
-purge
-noprobe
-port 13000
-login Ceera Murakami xxxxxxx

Where "Ceera Murakami" is the account name and "xxxxxxx" is the password. With a -login line, you don't need to enter the account name or password. Omit the password from that line, and you'll need to type the password, but still don't have to type the account name.

Purge clears the cache each time you log in. Noprobe and port 13000 were recommended by someone else, and maked it easier to work with a router that has a firewall.

When you use a SL app set up this last way, with the avatar name specified, I name each copy "SL-" and the name of that avatar, or their initials.

Actually, you could do a lil' Network trick and "subnet" your IP Address (look it up on WIkipedia). It's basically partitioning your Network address into smaller network chunks. A bit confusing at first till you actually do it.

Your Router uses NAT (network address translation) where it sees all the computers connected to it and assigns each one a unique IP Address. Most likely 192.168.1.1 or some such for the 'main' PC. Then each computer gets one similar, like 192.168.1.3 and so on.

I stand corrected... even though I was trying to answer the technical question with as little jargon (which some love to overdo) as possible. <hits self over the head... 'don't dumb down techie questions in future'>

When you attempt to create a new account, there is an automatic check to see how many accounts you have using your identification method (e-mail).

There is no automatic check for an IP address.

I believe that the reason that Linden Labs uses its discretion when it comes to one person using multiple identification methods is thus: It would be a big, time-consuming, money-consuming pain to try to track who may or may not be using multiple identification methods. If they investigate someone abusing their system with too many accounts, they have a quick rule to which they can point to start banning the accounts. Unless Linden Labs has a reason to look into what you are doing (and we know how high the threshhold for that is), you shouldn't have a problem.

Though based on the Linden Labs policy of "Delete first, ask questions never," it might not be wise to spend a lot of extra money on those additional accounts.

One more thing...I used to let friends sign-up to try it out @ my house....since LL has no way of telling if it's your Account, or a new one signing up...after this happens 4 times, you're "cut off", & nobody including you can sign up from that machine again.

Found this out the "hard" way, but at least nobody told me thier Accounts got *canceled*. If I want to sign up an Alt, I (think) I'll just have to call LL, point out the fact that these other Accounts have been logging in from thier own locations all this time too, and I'm free to do it...not that I see a real reason for one at this moment.

(Besides the torrent of PMs I get every time I log in )

2002?
SL just announced their 4th BD, but an account from 2002 would be 5 yrs old, how does that work?

Was SL open previous to the day or year they use to celebrate their birthday?

maybe he is a Linden in disguise?