[Sderby] networking

[David Jolley]

* mark wilkes (mwdl12311@blueyonder.co.uk) wrote:
> I am currently in the midst of building / purchasing another 3 PC's
> + hub, network cards, cat5 cables etc for my home network / hobby /
> obsession.  I would like to use linux Suse8 as the operating system
> for my server (which I have) or hpux 11(which I require) and dual
> boot with win 2000 server (which I require). I would like to use win
> 2000 professional (which I require) and another linux or Unix o/s (
> which I require) for my client PC's.  Any suggestions on the best
> way to do this would be be great e.g s/w I can borrow or purchase &
> any hardware for sale.
>
All I have in the way of software is Debian 3.0 on CD (7 of them)
which I can copy and sling your way on Friday (assuming you're going
to the pub).

> I reckon if I buy a couple of Pentium2 machines with 64m ram and
> then build my own server with 1+gig processor and 256m ram to
> intergrate with my Pentium3 128m ram PC (dual booting linux suse8 &
> win 98se) I should have a decent starting point.  Any do's or
> don'ts?
>
Unless there's a specific speed requirement on the server, I'd shy
away from having such a beefy machine as the server.  In my
experience, they don't need as much clout as the client machines
usually do.  Obviously, if you're contemplating a multi user
development environment, then you'll require something special.
I'd actually have the 1.0GHz class machine as the Win2K Pro machine,
and have an older PII as the server.

> I only have a 56k modem at the moment so I can't download any s/w to
> big, but will hopefully upgrade to broadband when my network is up
> and running.  My budget isn't very big (=A3400-500max) but I saw some
> really cheap stuff at the Northern computer fair last week (pent2
> full system =A365 & monitor =A330) .  Are these events ok to acquire
> bargains or is most of it junk?  Any help or advice would be greatly
> appreciated.
>=20
If you're considering braodband, I'd go for 1 extra NIC in the server,
so that you can place your broadband router in bridged mode, actually
routing the IP address directly onto a NIC.  Your internal network
would then be connected to the second NIC, and this would solve a
whole lot of problems that I wished I'd thought of before I got
broadband (and, as an aside, a completely useless router).

> ps; Hopefully in the near future my next project will be to add a
> router or web caching server with firewall. In I.T expansion is
> limitless but I think my wife will kill me before the network takes
> over the house.
>=20
This would be ideal to run on Linux - Squid as the web caching proxy,
and ip[chains|tables] will be excellent as a firewall.  This'll
probably expand to be an SMTP server for incoming and outgoing mail,
after you've used it for a while, cos that's the next logical thing to
do.

HTH,

Dave.

--=20
Pieces of seven! Pieces of seven!
	Halt on critical fault:  Parroty error.