Will this configuration work?

[Crab Meat]

Ok, this is pretty simple. I don't have all the parts for it yet, but here is is. I will have 4 computers, and a cable modem, all connected to a 3com 10/100 switch. A P4, an Athlon 1.33, a P3-1000 815ep chipset, and a P3-750 as the NT 4.0/Win2K server. I want the server to be the Primary Domain Controller for the Athlon and the P3-1000. The P4 will be used exclusively for the internet (cable modem). Is this setup possible if all computers are on and transmitting information on the LAN simultaneously? I am assuming it is because they are all connected to a switch, which is like a smart HUB. Thanks for any help.

[ECILOPAVEHT]

Originally posted by Crab Meat:
Ok, this is pretty simple. I don't have all the parts for it yet, but here is is. I will have 4 computers, and a cable modem, all connected to a 3com 10/100 switch. A P4, an Athlon 1.33, a P3-1000 815ep chipset, and a P3-750 as the NT 4.0/Win2K server. I want the server to be the Primary Domain Controller for the Athlon and the P3-1000. The P4 will be used exclusively for the internet (cable modem). Is this setup possible if all computers are on and transmitting information on the LAN simultaneously? I am assuming it is because they are all connected to a switch, which is like a smart HUB. Thanks for any help.

Your setup looks good with the exeptions of a few things. Are you using windows 2k or NT4 as a server? What are your other types of OS. IF you are running win9.x you will have no benifit of runing a Domain controler on the server. The odds are that you will not be able to connect your Cable modem to your switch. Most ISP's only allow you to have one IP ADDRESS with out paying for more.

I suggest to use your server as a DHCP server and route the internet throu it using ICS. You will then be able to connect all computers to the net. If you want to block the other PC you can do this with in the server.


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[Nabu_the_Wise]

I imagine you will want two nics in the P4 (the cable modem might not like being plugged into the switch - depending on how it gets on to their network. Many such modems will only allow one computer to connect to the internet, if your isp uses mac addresses to verify computers, and it might not choose the nic you want it to.)

[BillionPa]

this is my reccomendation: a single linux dhcp server with a cheep 640x480 video card, no sound card, and 2 high performance network cards running as a dhcp server, you can even use an old sub gig HDD on it, since you would not use it much. and a 300MHz P2 would work fine on it. you can access it using a secure shell instead of a monitor even. have 1 network card hooked up to the cable modem and the other (192.168.0.1) hooked to the uplink port on the switch. then have the other computers use 192.168.0.* ip addresses and a gateway of 192.168.0.1 and DNS servers that the cable modem provides to the linux box. that is basically what ICS is, you just have to get the OS to allow access to the internet over the second network card, should not be too hard.

[ua549]

Since you mentioned a domain controller, your Win2k box must be Win2k Server or higher. In Win2k Server use NAT not ICS. NAT is full featured. ICS is a crippled version of NAT. You can assign static IPs with NAT and avoid the overhead of DHCP. You'll need 2 NICs in the box, one for the internal network and one for the external connection to the Internet.

BTW - another advantage of this configuration is it isolates your internal network from the Internet, i.e., acts as a firewall.

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[Crab Meat]

Thanks a lot for your help, I think I figured it out now. There were a couple of things you guys pointed out that I forgot about. Thanks.

[randy9999]

I was never too crazy about using a PC for a gateway to the internet. If you have it shutdown for maintenance, all of you other machines are off line. Plus, the gateway machine has to be on all of the time. Cable modem routers are cheap. They are firewalls that do NAT,and they are dhcp clients on the WAN / dhcp servers on the LAN. I have a Netgear , but there are others. Some like the Linksys. That's what I would get, a cable modem router and switch/hub, or one of the combo models.
regards

[This message has been edited by randy9999 (edited May 11, 2001).]