Setting Up a Home Network

[kayizm007 0]

Hello all, as i am new to the forum, I was hoping some of you guys can give me a hand with a few questions that i have. Since I believe hands on is very important in this word of IT, my goal is to do just that, get some of the hands on that is needed. The software that i have is Windows 2003 as well as 2000 Server, Exchange 2000 Server, Windows XP , 2000 Pro. Hardware, I have 3 Desktops as well as 2 laptops. I have a cable modem for the internet connected to a DI-704 Link (D-Link DI-704 is a Broadband Home and Small Business Gateway with Four Switched Fast Ethernet Ports). One of the questions I have is where would one start? How would one start? I want to get experience with the "Server" side of things. Where would you guys start? Thanks for all your help in advance.

[jmmijo 1]

Are you looking just to share the broadband connection with all the machines ?!?

 

Are you looking to setup one or more servers with or without a domain controller or what ?!?

 

Since I know most users just want to share the connection, you should be able to connect the cable modem/router to the Dlink Gateway device then all the LAN machines would connect to the gateway device. Also since you have a couple of laptops I'm going to assume this particular gateway device has wireless for them

 

I would imagine that the gateway device should be pretty much pre-configured, my Linksys was. I only had to port forward/trigger a couple of ports for my game and ftp servers.

 

As for setting up servers I'm going to defer to others with more experience here. I've not setup any servers since my old NT4 days.

[AndyFair 0]

The main question here is - what do you want to do with your setup?

 

Are you going to be using a wired or wireless network? If wired, are you going to do the wiring yourself, or are you just planning on using everything in one room, and put up with the rats nest?

 

If you've only got Exchange 2000, you're stuck with having to use the 2k server, as Servcer 2003 won't run Exchange 2000.

 

As far as the server setup goes, the first place to start is to read up on Active Directory (AD) - Microsoft Technet is a good place to start, but there are loads of other sites on the Internet that will tell you what you need to know.

 

For e-mail, do you have a POP3 account from your ISP that you will be accessing? If so, you'll need some additional software to sit in front of the Exchange server to do the actual POP e-mail collection and then pass it to the Exchange server - take a look at something like POPCon. That website also has a fairly good guide on how to set up a basic Exchange server. If you don't want to use something like POPCon, you'll have to investigate setting up your server with its own MX address - but that's probably too complicated if you're only "playing"!

 

There are so many questions to ask, but they all depend on what you plan on doing - the best thing is just to jump in feet first and see what happens!!

 

Rgds

AndyF