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December 20th, 2010 10:00
Advice on configuring NICs
I have a PE 300 that I'm setting up in my home environment of 3 LAN PCs running WinXP Pro. The server has just been installed with SBS '03 and I've installed most tools.
The next thing to setup is the configuration of the NICs but I need a little coaching through this. I'm one of the millions of unemployed IT persons and trying to brush up on some peripheral skills. I'm a PM by trade and always find myself working with networks/servers. I thought by setting up this server in my home would give me a little more understanding while working with admins.
My setup:
I have a broadband cable ISP. So I have a pre-configured cable modem. My router is a linksys LAN/WAN which is also acting as the DHCP for all LAN connections except for static IPs on each of two printers. I also lock down the wireless connections to MAC addresses of all approved devices (Laptops, iPhones, Game Consoles, etc.) connecting through the WAN.
I assume I want to transfer the DHCP responsibilities of LAN devices to the server while the router continues to manage the WAN devices. Correct?
I believe I will also setup Exchange on the SBS. I don't know about IIS though, I'm open to suggestions.
So, the initial question is how do I configure the two NICs on the server?
Knowing the config of the server will also require changes to the router, what are those changes?
Given my objectives of setting up a SBS in my home, both for functionality and for the experience, what other suggestions would you offer?
Thank you in advance for your help!
TJ
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DELL-Jeff M
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793 Posts
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December 20th, 2010 16:00
Thanks for posting!
First off, I suggest turning off DHCP and DNS on the router. I'm not sure how that will work with one router that does wired and wireless, but in general it is easiest to let SBS do DHCP and DNS on the network. If you make sure the wireless DHCP points to the SBS server for DNS, that will probably make things easier. Also, I'm sure you will hear this again and again, ALWAYS use the wizards!
To make the most of your learning experience, try the two typical configurations for an SBS server, one running ISA, one not.
The easy one is to leave ISA off, and just use one NIC to connect to the router along with everything else. The SBS box handles the networking, and you will want to set up a static IP and external DNS entries, then open the appropriate ports on your router so you can run Exchange and IIS if you actually want them to be functional.
The other configuration is to make your network topology look like this:
Router -> SBS with ISA -> switch or hub -> rest of the network
This is the setup for SBS as a software firewall as well as everything else. You will put one NIC on the same internal subnet as your router, and the other NIC that plugs into your switch will have a different subnet. That IP will be the gateway IP for everything else on the network.
Have fun!