Advanced Network at home

J

jerry486

New Member
Hi,

This will be a long discussion and I will have loads of questions!

I am looking forward to setting an ADVANCED* network at home. Currently I have a Virgin Media (UK) modem cabled to an MSI wireless router. My PC is connected via eth cable (for better results, also is a DMZ) and other people (2 laptops) are using the internet via wireless.

I will have some other people and other devices, so:

(Please look at the image I've created - the basic idea).
http://j486.net/temp/new_network.jpg

Please comment on the below:

1) I have good understanding of this stuff so please explain it in an advanced manner.

2) I want more control of what is going on the network (router does not offer much options, no advanced firmware for it available either).

3) I want to have more charts / graphs / network managing tools on the server

4) I want to disable the DHCP on the router so server ALPHA takes this over. i would like to reserve IP addresses on the LAN for specific devices with a specific MAC ADDRESS (the router offers this).

5) The server Alpha runs on windows 2000 server ( i have a spare PC for this )

questions:

6) I would like to use Active Directory (to play around a bit) - or shall I ignore this (another way?)

7) domain system? Or would controlling all this network flow be possible on a normal workgroup based system?

8) i would like Alpha server to handle basically everything (limit speeds to cetrain PC's / protocols / ports/ etc. )

9) Is there any other SYSTEM / METHOD / SOFTWARE you would recommend instead of my idea?

10) comments on my network diagram?

Sorry for this very long thread, but I would like to play around with some advanced stuff and need expert opinion.
 

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More than likely you won't be able to get the control that you want.
First of all you can't have a dmz without two firewalls. Ex:
externalstserver.jpg


I'm not too sure but I don't think you can have a fully blown DHCP server in your house (Could cause problems on their end).

AD - If you want you can install Active Directory and then add the computers in your home to that domain.

Network Tools - You can browse around cnet.com to find some network management tools.
 
ROFLcopter said:
More than likely you won't be able to get the control that you want.
First of all you can't have a dmz without two firewalls. Ex:
externalstserver.jpg


I'm not too sure but I don't think you can have a fully blown DHCP server in your house (Could cause problems on their end).

AD - If you want you can install Active Directory and then add the computers in your home to that domain.

Network Tools - You can browse around cnet.com to find some network management tools.
Click to expand...
You can setup a DMZ with just one firewall, if the server was on the DMZ then basically the firewall will allow any traffic to and from it. An internal DHCP server will not cause any conflicts with the ISP, as far as the ISP is concerned all they will see is the modem.
 
DMZ is to bypass firewalls and NAT.

DHCP is the way to arrange things, it makes it easy. No one wants to map static IPs in a subnet to multiple clients, it is a pain. If anything run DHCP and use static DHCP for boxes that need static IPs.

Active Directory? If you even want to bother with that to learn it you might as well bump up to 2k3, no one I know of still runs Win server 2k.

If you want to do network shaping and QoS just buy a $50 router that supports DD-WRT firmware. Just my 2 cents
 
the whole idea was to make the router reduntant (only to handle wireless and plugged in devices via eth cable)

Ok, let me re-fraze the whole thing:

How do I make this spare PC (alpha) a router :D I just want it to handle everything, to see stats etc, throttle connections/protocols.

I can arrange the DHCP on the winserver to assign specific IPs inside the network based on mac addresses ;) whats next :D ?
 
Also I made a mistake on my diagram. Where it says DNS OFF it should be DHCP,, same in case of DNS ON (should be DHCP)
 
See, this is where are you stepping into a whole different realm. For what you would want to use at home, is night and day difference from what a business would use on their enterprise network.

Servers can run DHCP, DNS, firewalls, filtering, NAT, and other services. However, networking hardware (controllers and routers and even some switches) can also run some of these services. So, it really just depends on what you want to do, your budget and so forth when you look at these things.

To be honest a router can handle most of those things unless you are going to have more than like 20 clients on your network. If you want to learn I suggest you pick up the MSCE training books and just follow along in the chapters on setting up security, IIS, Active Directory, DNS, and so forth on Windows servers. Look for classes at your school too if you are still in school.
 
Hah!

Managed to make ALPHA handle the DHCP function (its now disabled on the router and works on new clients both wireless and eth cable) and I've made IP LAN addresses reservations in DHCP server config under win2k server .. still no internet though .. i've messed something with DNS :(
 
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