Basic Networking Questions

[nitetrain8601]

I know a couple of people here are great IT people. What I want to do is simple. I want to setup Windows Server 2003 in my house to act as an application server and file server. I also want to be able to access the internet on all machines. I have an old laptop that I will be using that meets the requirements.

 

I have a few basic questions. How would I connect it. I've searched high and low on the internet, and everywhere I go, I can't find an answer. Even an example. So can someone tell me how it would look in order to get the functionality I want. I have 2 laptops, a PS3, Xbox 360 which all will be wireless, and a desktop that will be hardwired. Again, I want the internet, to share files, to share applications and to share printers(though this I know how to do). I have experience with Active Directory and such. I'm using Server 2003 because it's free for me and my laptop does not meet the requirements for Server 2008.

[Y2HH]

I know a couple of people here are great IT people. What I want to do is simple. I want to setup Windows Server 2003 in my house to act as an application server and file server. I also want to be able to access the internet on all machines. I have an old laptop that I will be using that meets the requirements.

 

I have a few basic questions. How would I connect it. I've searched high and low on the internet, and everywhere I go, I can't find an answer. Even an example. So can someone tell me how it would look in order to get the functionality I want. I have 2 laptops, a PS3, Xbox 360 which all will be wireless, and a desktop that will be hardwired. Again, I want the internet, to share files, to share applications and to share printers(though this I know how to do). I have experience with Active Directory and such. I'm using Server 2003 because it's free for me and my laptop does not meet the requirements for Server 2008.

 

I think I understand what it is you want to do, but the question is why do you want to do it? There was a time that a file/application server was a necessity out of lack of workstation processing power, but as it stands today, the only thing you'd really be doing is slowing yourself down if you want to go through the app server for everything you do.

 

Accessing the Internet is as simple as just creating a wireless/wired network that assigns a range of DHCP ip's and shares a single access point (usually the router itself would have your ISP assigned IP address on it, and it would assign the range of DHCP addresses to whatever workstations/servers that connect to it), for your printers and whatnot you can reserve specific IP's from the DHCP table so they will always get the same IP, you do this via the MAC address of whatever system in question.

 

For the file server, you'd merely create the necessary usernames/passwords, enable file sharing, and set the permission on the shared drives/directories. This would be another server you want a DHCP ip reserved for, so it always has the same IP address and when you want to use it, you know where it will always be. If you want browsing around your network to be truly easy, simply enable NetBIOS on every machine, it would simplify things a lot. If you do not want to use NetBIOS, because it's quite old now, you'd merely enable Computer Browser services on every machine on the network (if it's still called that), so they can see each other when you go into "my network", or "my network places" as I think it's called today.

 

As for the "app server" part of the equation, it would be easier to just install the app on every machine and use it that way, versus sharing the applications through that server.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Y2HH

[nitetrain8601]

I think I understand what it is you want to do, but the question is why do you want to do it? There was a time that a file/application server was a necessity out of lack of workstation processing power, but as it stands today, the only thing you'd really be doing is slowing yourself down if you want to go through the app server for everything you do.

 

Accessing the Internet is as simple as just creating a wireless/wired network that assigns a range of DHCP ip's and shares a single access point (usually the router itself would have your ISP assigned IP address on it, and it would assign the range of DHCP addresses to whatever workstations/servers that connect to it), for your printers and whatnot you can reserve specific IP's from the DHCP table so they will always get the same IP, you do this via the MAC address of whatever system in question.

 

For the file server, you'd merely create the necessary usernames/passwords, enable file sharing, and set the permission on the shared drives/directories. This would be another server you want a DHCP ip reserved for, so it always has the same IP address and when you want to use it, you know where it will always be. If you want browsing around your network to be truly easy, simply enable NetBIOS on every machine, it would simplify things a lot. If you do not want to use NetBIOS, because it's quite old now, you'd merely enable Computer Browser services on every machine on the network (if it's still called that), so they can see each other when you go into "my network", or "my network places" as I think it's called today.

 

As for the "app server" part of the equation, it would be easier to just install the app on every machine and use it that way, versus sharing the applications through that server.

 

I want to do it for experience mostly.

 

So as I understand it, I can simply plug in my server into my router under one of the LAN ports of my router then follow your directions of assigning IPs for the certain tasks?

 

Currently my setup is:

 

Cable Modem --> Linksys WRT54G router --> Lan Port 1 = Server, Lan Port 2 = Workstation, and everything else wi-fi.

 

When I attempted to install Server 2003 this past weekend, I was able to install it, but none of my other machines could read it, nor was I even able to connect to the internet with it at the very least to obtain updates.

[Y2HH]

I want to do it for experience mostly.

 

So as I understand it, I can simply plug in my server into my router under one of the LAN ports of my router then follow your directions of assigning IPs for the certain tasks?

 

Currently my setup is:

 

Cable Modem --> Linksys WRT54G router --> Lan Port 1 = Server, Lan Port 2 = Workstation, and everything else wi-fi.

 

When I attempted to install Server 2003 this past weekend, I was able to install it, but none of my other machines could read it, nor was I even able to connect to the internet with it at the very least to obtain updates.

 

Ah, ok...for the experience. I'll see what I can do to help then.

 

Your hardware setup is fine. What you need to do is login to the Linksys, and configure a shared connection (where the Linksys acts as the gateway to the internet). Here you will configure a DHCP network for all of your internal machines, that way they will all be on the same subnet and be able to openly communicate with each other...however, you will still have to open the necessary security settings on the workstations/servers themselves. For example, all of your machines should have similar IP's on the same netblock:

 

These numbers are all RFC1918 (fake internet addresses reserved for internal networks), and are just examples.

 

You could statically assign these IP's, however, since you are already using an DHCP setup for this, you may as well just use DHCP reservations to auto-assign IP's to servers/printers which you always want to have the same IP.

 

Server: 10.11.12.2 (Create a DHCP reservation for this machine, bound to it's MAC address, this way it always has the same IP)

Workstation #1: 10.11.12.3

Workstation #2: 10.11.12.4

Printer: 10.11.12.10 (Create a DHCP reservation for this printer, same as above, so it's IP never changes)

Gateway: (The Linksys) 10.11.12.1 (Usually, using .1 is standard practice for gateways in most organizations/companies)

 

After you do this, you will need to check the firewall settings on the servers/workstations to make sure they can see each other, to start, you might want to just disable the software firewall on your machines, it's not needed anyway. Nothing from the outside world will be able to route into your machines until/unless you assign port mapping on the router, so it doesn't matter anyway.

 

I recommend also assigning the DNS servers via the Linksys, too. Use Primary: 8.8.8.8 and Secondary 8.8.4.4 (These are Googles public DNS servers, I recommend them as they're always easy to remember the IP addresses of.

 

After you bring up the network in this way, verify communications via a CMD prompt, and just type:

 

ping x.x.x.x (where x.x.x.x is the IP of the various servers/workstations on the network), you should get icmp replies to this if they can see each other.

 

After communication is verified, you can then begin "networking" by trying to share a folder (for example), on your file server, then, to access that shared folder, on any of the other workstations, go to start, run and type the following:

 

\\x.x.x.x\ (where x.x.x.x is the IP address of your file server, it's also possible you can try to access it by name, it will send out a L2 request to see if anyone responds, for example ping inamedmyworkstationChester -- the workstation named that will probably reply with it's IP, etc.)

 

As a default, you could also just trying accessing the shared drives Microsoft defaults onto everything (in their infinite wisdom), to do this you'd browse to the file server or workstation in question the same way as above but tag on c$ for the c drive, or d$ for the d drive.

 

\\x.x.x.x\c$

 

or

 

\\x.x.x.x\d$

 

This will probably request an administrator user/pass, but it default exists on every Windows computer, and basically gives you access to the entire filesystem.

 

Oh, on the fileserver, you will need to make sure the server and workstation services are started -- to check this, click start/run, and type in services.msc -- if the server service isn't running, start it/set it to automatic, same with workstation, etc...

Edited June 30, 2011 by Y2HH

[nitetrain8601]

Ah, ok...for the experience. I'll see what I can do to help then.

 

Your hardware setup is fine. What you need to do is login to the Linksys, and configure a shared connection (where the Linksys acts as the gateway to the internet). Here you will configure a DHCP network for all of your internal machines, that way they will all be on the same subnet and be able to openly communicate with each other...however, you will still have to open the necessary security settings on the workstations/servers themselves. For example, all of your machines should have similar IP's on the same netblock:

 

These numbers are all RFC1918 (fake internet addresses reserved for internal networks), and are just examples.

 

You could statically assign these IP's, however, since you are already using an DHCP setup for this, you may as well just use DHCP reservations to auto-assign IP's to servers/printers which you always want to have the same IP.

 

Server: 10.11.12.2 (Create a DHCP reservation for this machine, bound to it's MAC address, this way it always has the same IP)

Workstation #1: 10.11.12.3

Workstation #2: 10.11.12.4

Printer: 10.11.12.10 (Create a DHCP reservation for this printer, same as above, so it's IP never changes)

Gateway: (The Linksys) 10.11.12.1 (Usually, using .1 is standard practice for gateways in most organizations/companies)

 

After you do this, you will need to check the firewall settings on the servers/workstations to make sure they can see each other, to start, you might want to just disable the software firewall on your machines, it's not needed anyway. Nothing from the outside world will be able to route into your machines until/unless you assign port mapping on the router, so it doesn't matter anyway.

 

I recommend also assigning the DNS servers via the Linksys, too. Use Primary: 8.8.8.8 and Secondary 8.8.4.4 (These are Googles public DNS servers, I recommend them as they're always easy to remember the IP addresses of.

 

After you bring up the network in this way, verify communications via a CMD prompt, and just type:

 

ping x.x.x.x (where x.x.x.x is the IP of the various servers/workstations on the network), you should get icmp replies to this if they can see each other.

 

After communication is verified, you can then begin "networking" by trying to share a folder (for example), on your file server, then, to access that shared folder, on any of the other workstations, go to start, run and type the following:

 

\\x.x.x.x\ (where x.x.x.x is the IP address of your file server, it's also possible you can try to access it by name, it will send out a L2 request to see if anyone responds, for example ping inamedmyworkstationChester -- the workstation named that will probably reply with it's IP, etc.)

 

As a default, you could also just trying accessing the shared drives Microsoft defaults onto everything (in their infinite wisdom), to do this you'd browse to the file server or workstation in question the same way as above but tag on c$ for the c drive, or d$ for the d drive.

 

\\x.x.x.x\c$

 

or

 

\\x.x.x.x\d$

 

This will probably request an administrator user/pass, but it default exists on every Windows computer, and basically gives you access to the entire filesystem.

 

Oh, on the fileserver, you will need to make sure the server and workstation services are started -- to check this, click start/run, and type in services.msc -- if the server service isn't running, start it/set it to automatic, same with workstation, etc...

 

Thanks for the help! I'm going to try this weekend.