Connecting office LAN to internet- help!

bigal

Hi all,

I've been lumbered with a task thats not at all in my area of 'expertise' so need some help! I'm fairly computer literate, just not network literate as sorting them out is nothing I've ever had to come across before.

Basically the office's setup is as follows: 20(ish) clients, all connected by 100baseT to a switch, which is connected to a server (using 1000baseT) running Windows server 2000. We also have an ADSL account and bog-standard USB/4 port ethernet ADSLmodem router (like what would be used at home). All computers have static IP addresses from ...x.2 to ...x.20, and the server an IP of ...x.1, which is what all the computers have their default gateway set to.

Basically, how do I connect the internet to the LAN so all machines can have access? Although cost is an issue, reliability/security and possible future VPN'ing. After reading lots of posts and expensive books, I'm still none the wiser how it all bits of kit interact. I don't know whether to put another network card into the server, run the ADSL connection into that using the current modem and there is software setup which can do the rest, or if I need to invest in a physical router which plugs into the switch somewhere... I'm quite stuck!!! User management on who see's what would be helpful, however not a must as (touchwood) most empolyees can be trusted!
All guides on the net seem to be about how to set up win95 networks using DOS programs, and I'm assuming nowadays its going to be much simpler!

Thanks in advance,
Alex

JChretien

your setup sounds like a largescale version of what i have at home. I have 5 computers hooked up to a switch along with my server, which runs win2kpro. i have a 2nd network card in the server, into that i have the DSL/Cable hookup. On the server, i ran the ICS (internet connection sharing) software inside windows. Only the NIC on the server hooked up the switch needs a static IP if you turn on DHCP. I hope that somewhat helps.

--Edit--

ICS is software built into windows 98se/ME/all flavours of 2k. A guide on how to use it is here:

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics_2000

primesuspect

All you need to do is give the router a static address on your network that matches the others' subnet (i.e. if your network is 10.0.0.x, the router should be 10.0.0.254 or something)

Then, make sure every computer's gateway address is 10.0.0.254 (or whatever).

A MUCH easier way to do this is to have windows 2000 server do DHCP, and hand out the gateway info with an IP address.

deicist

You can 'uplink' your current switch to your current router / modem... just connect a cat5 cable from one of the ports on your switch to one of the ethernet ports on your router. Then, as prime said, you need to set the router's LAN ip to be on the same subnet as your client pcs, and tell the client pcs to use the router as their gateway.

JChretien

deicist wrote:

You can 'uplink' your current switch to your current router / modem... just connect a cat5 cable from one of the ports on your switch to one of the ethernet ports on your router.

i believe that you require a "crossover" Cat5 cable, or else it wont work.

deicist

JChretien wrote:

i believe that you require a "crossover" Cat5 cable, or else it wont work.

Not true, most modern switches auto-detect which type of cable you have in and adapt accordingly (the procurves at work do anyway) and older switches usually have a port for uplinking that you can toggle between MDI and MDI-X depending on whether you have straight through / crossover in it.

JChretien

hmm my old Baystack 350F doesnt autosense crossover and doesnt have an uplink/mdi/mdi-x port either so thats why I said that. Oh well, just a possibility ^^

deicist

ah I stand corrected then, but every 24 port switch I've seen has had either autosense or MDI / MDI-X. Worth mentioning though

bigal

Thanks all for the replies! I don't think I could see the wood for the trees, I thought it was going to be *much* trickier (and expensive) than that!

So the two options are to either:
- Install a second NIC into the server and enable connection sharing
or
- Put the router on the network within the same subnet as the other machines & adjust their gateways accordingly.

Is there any way in particular which would be best for security reasons, or which would allow basic user access settings to be set from the server?

Thanks all, and hopefully by this time next week when someone needs to check e-mail or do banking it can be done from their desk machine straight away, instead of going into the server room, disconnecting their cable from the switch, and plugging it into one of the 4 router ports!

Alex

deicist

Personally I'd go for the router option, in my experience Windows internet connection sharing is rubbish, and causes more problems than it's worth. From the point of view of security I'd go for the router too, if your server is connected directly to the net you lose some of the security that having it one step removed from the net affords.


If you want some kind of user acess control you might want to have a look at ISA server, which is microsofts software firewall / internet gateway solution running on the server along with a 3rd party plugin like surfcontrol. ISA server acts as the internet gateway for the network, and also adds another level of firewall security into the network... surfcontrol lets you block / allow websites by url or by 'category', and lets you assign users to groups and give access to those gorups as you want. It might be a bit overkill for what you need, and I've no idea how much it costs but it's a good system.

TheHeartSmasher

Don't forget to get a hardware firewall or a router with a built in firewall that is directly connected to the internet

ex.

Firewalled router---->Server---->(firewalled)Switch/router

---

>Computer(s)

The firewalled router is for the protection of your server. Don't forget to upgrade the machines to the latest service pack...