Home Internet LANs & Internet Caf?s

you could run a windows 2000 machine and share the internet connection use the internal ethernet card as the gateway i set up a small 8 client cafe that way and the gateway runs xp..works just fine if youare are considering security user profiles then win 2k server wouldnotbe a baud place to start. And set up a NAT server. cbtnuugets.com is a good resource you cld watch some of the videos on Network Address Translation

re:
Hi I am wondering what people do for home or other small internet LANs?
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The best way I've found to do this is to get a Router, instead of piping the connection through a Windows server.

The routers cost about $150 and are as common as fleas on a tick hound. The router, instead of a PC, connects to your provider using what all the providers use - PPPoE. Then you plug all of your computers into the routers ports.

If you wanna set up a Win2K domain server, this is easy enough - but you'll find that without static IP's, there's not much you can do with it.

If you go ahead and get static IP's (and your provider doesn't block your ports), you can do all the cool server stuff - email, ftp, web, rdbms - all of it.

If you wanna do it *securely*, you'll wanna buy a server security certificate from Verisign or somebody.

Not the unit which I have used, but if you have a reasonably fast connection it is not much of an issue

If you have old equipment laying around and don't want (or like me, couldn't) to buy a router, another option is a software based firewall...

When I had a home, and a home network, I used a Linux based firewall called Smoothwall (smoothwall.org). It's fully functional and easy to set up, but also has a lot of advanced features you can add onto it if you're competent enough to do so (and a forum that will give you instructions if you're not).

All you need is an old PC and two NICs and you're all set, it will act as a router, dhcp/dns server, firewall, vpn, proxy, content filter, etc...

Good stuff.

You can just go wireless and put a router and the put a pci card in to the other computers in the house. And as far as a firewall just download a software firewall like sygate it is frees and block everthing. It is very easy to use to. Also u could download spybot seach&destroy. I hope this helps u.

If you are running Active Directory at home and want the server to know about DNS outside in the real world, you would only need to set a root hint to one of the Internet domain servers. This would be set in DNS in AD by doing the following:

Logon on the server as an adminstrator.
Click Start.
Click Program.
Click Administrative Tools.
Click DNS.
Check the radio button that says This Computer and click Ok.
Click DNS.
Highlight the named server which appears (this should be the server itself)
Right Click and choose Properties.
Click the tab that says Root Hints.
Click Add.
In the text box place the name a.root-servers.net.
Click Resolve.
Click Ok.

You can continue this action for as many of the root servers as you like, as they exist from a.root-servers.net to m.root-servers.net.

Click Ok.
Click File.
Click Exit.

You can also just input the Fully Qualified Domain Name of the router which should be the DSL router that the ISP either supplies you or that you purchase.

One of the things to be sure is that you name your Active Directory forest as .local instead of .com, .net, .biz, etc. This will allow only members of your Active Directory forest to utilize resources and offers you a higher level of protection.

Best of luck with your efforts.

I think to make it simple, you can build up a Workgroup network with all WinXp PCs. To shared the ADSL connection, you can use the hardware solution which is available with lot of options or simply use the Internet Connection sharing serivce from WinXP as a soft solution.

Unless you need a server to run a database application, act as a files server or do any special tasks, then I think you don't need to build up a domain to make things complicated.

Hien

Hi again thanks for the post. Wow Uganda - I imagine the Internet really stinks there. I guess I should not complain about Jakarta. Here the problem is caused by monopolies and corruption, rather than actual infrastructure limitations.

I think I understand - you are doing the internet connection sharing option with XP and have two nic cards. When I did this before my server was running Windows 2K advanced server and I was trying to share with 2K Pro machines. It would basically lock up my server ( but I think that was a result of PPPoE - as another poste noted )

If I go the XP sharing route I will let you know ( best regards from Jakarta )

You only need a server and domain if you want storage and want to be able to secure it or a web server. ie all users must logon to the server and authinticate to access the server and obtain an ip. other wise all you neet is a broad band router with a dhcp scope and switch. the isp usally hand out one ip to the router and you set up your internal ip scheema. You can than share out folders to share info and printers to share printing configure your pcs to automatically detect network settings and you will obtain an ip, default gateway when you logon to your machine.