Chris Good's Home Network Page
This web page is always growing as I discover new, neat stuff to add to our home network. Here is a map of the our home LAN setup, which consists of 29 computers. At the bottom of this page are some pictures that show how this LAN evolved. You may notice the computers are named after some Egyptian gods. Not really - they are all named after Goa'ulds (the bad guys) and the Tok'ra (the good guys?) from the television series Stargate SG-1. The part of the network bordered in red is for sale. If you want to have a ready-built network to experiment with, this is the perfect hobbyist buy.
1. HOME NETWORK SETUP If you would like a very good explanation on exactly how to setup a LAN in your house, share files and printers, and share an internet connection via a dial-up connection or wide-band connection, go to http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/network/. These how-to pages completely illustrate setting up a Win 95/98 LAN, and they show every step in the connection process.
2. INTERNET CONNECTION SHARING (ICS) Wizard in Windows 98 Second Edition. How-to at this same link. This is a very useful utility - it allows you to set up your main computer and share its Internet connection to the rest of the machines in your house. The connection out to the Internet can be narrow or wide band. You need to set up the main computer with its outside connection (dial-up/cable/dsl, etc.) and add a [second] NIC to connect to the rest of the house. This main machine is called the gateway.
The [second] refers to the fact that if you already have a single NIC to communicate with a cable modem/dsl modem, you will need to add a second NIC that will be responsible for internal home communications. Make sure you know which is which during the setup process. The TCP/IP connection used to talk to the Internet is called the "SHARED" connection and the internal TCP/IP connection is called the "HOME" connection. To avoid confusion, remember that the outside connection is being shared by all the computers in your house. The internal NIC talks to the computers in your home. This internal home NIC can talk via a cross-over cable to just one other computer, or to a hub to talk to as many machines as you want (actually up to 255 others).
When you do set up ICS, the main computer will have two IP addresses. The first will be what the computer is known by to the outside world, and that will be set (usually) by the DHCP server that assigns you your IP address. It is different every time you make a phone dial-up or re-establish a connection via a cable modem. The [second] NIC will have a static IP (192.168.0.1) so that all the other machines in your house will know where to go to get outside access.
The rest of the machines (running at least Win 95) will be dynamically allocated IP addresses by ICS as they boot up and establish themselves on your network. Do not try to set static IP's for the other machines; biggest hint for ICS: use dynamic IP's - NOT static IP's If you set static IP's, the share feature will not work correctly. You only need Win 98 SE on the gateway machine - the client computers need only Win 95 or better.
The above setup works great for zero extra money, but the main gateway machine has to be on for all other machines to connect out. For a small investment you can have a permanent connection for all machines in the house. Buy a cable/dsl router with DHCP server. I bought mine at CompUSA for $70. It has one WAN connection to connect out via the cable (or dsl) modem and internal connections to share that internet connection throughout the house. Siemens has several models, from 2 internal ports and up. If you have a hub to split the connection, you can buy the 2 port version, or other companies' 1 port versions made to share via hubs. Most of these routers have a configurable firewall built in as an added bonus.
3. PROXY SERVERS How to share an Internet connection across OS's. If your gateway machine is Win 95/98/ME (or NT), these proxy servers should run. You can then modify the settings in whatever browser you use to look for a proxy server at a specific port on your gateway machine. Go to http://www.download.com/ and search for "proxy server". There are many proxy serversat download.com, so take a look. Here are a few of the freeware proxy servers available:
Proski - it does an excellent job of sharing data across a home LAN using the htt protocol. Alas, it does not handle any other protocols. It will talk to other OS's - I use it to share an Internet connection to Linux machines from my gateway machine.
URL: http://digilander.iol.it/sergis/Proski.exeAnalogX Proxy Server - I haven't played with this very much yet, but it promises to support "... HTTP (web), HTTPS (secureweb), POP3 (recieve mail), SMTP (send mail), NNTP (newsgroups), FTP (file transfer), and Socks4/4a and partial Socks5 (no UDP) protocols!"
URL: http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/proxy.htmProxy+ - I can offer no opinion of this other than it is free, and the developers site is in the Czech Republic.
URL: http://www.proxyplus.cz/VProxy for NT 4.0 - I don't have NT on any of my machines, but here is the developers site:
URL: http://members.nbci.com/vlourie/
4. ETHERNET CABLING
In addition to the computers themselves, the machines are talking with lots of 3Com Etherlink III (3c509), SMC Ultra, and assorted other NICs. I have Cat-5 4-pair UTP (unshielded twisted pair) snaked throughout the house. Another hint: You can use one Cat-5 4-pair UTP cable to make two 10/100BaseT connections. It only takes 2-pair to get a connection. Attach the connectors yourself and double up:Two 10/100 base-T connections using one cat-5 line diagrams:
Connector #1: 4-pair UTP Connector #1
--8-- --8--
--7-- --7--
--6-- brown ---------------- brown --6--
--5-- --5--
--4-- --4--
--3-- brown-white ---------------brown-white --3--
--2-- blue ---------------- blue --2--
--1-- blue-white ----------------blue-white --1--Connector #2: Connector #2:
--8-- --8--
--7-- --7--
--6-- green ----------------- green --6--
--5-- --5--
--4-- --4--
--3-- green-white ----------------green-white --3--
--2-- orange ---------------- orange --2--
--1-- orange-white --------------- orange-white--1--
As you can see, pins 4,5,7,8 are not used in an ethernet connection and because cat-5 cable is 4-pair, you can use the third and fourth pair to connect a second set of computers or hubs. We have the main computer and laptop sitting together talking to the main hub in the basement with a single cat-5 cable that has the above layout. We did not have to run two cat-5 cables from the computer desk to the hub this way.
5. LINUX I am running the Peanut distribution of Linux.Why did I choose Peanut Linux? Very small install size. These sizes are quotes for Peanut 8.1; the newest version on the website is 9.0 and takes a bit more space. The install documentation for Peanut 8.1 says you need 150 MB to install the whole thing. You actually need 150 MB + 32 MB more for some swap space. There is a way around this however:
a.
As long as you have at least a 155 MB hard drive, do the complete install - the setup program will unzip the main gzipped file out of the image file or cdromonto your hard drive. That takes about 150 MB.
b. It will then create a swap file. If you are running out of a DOS window,the swap file will be in the /peanut directory.
c. If you are installing completely within an ext2 partition, the setup program will try to create the swap file in your main partition (hda1 if that is your only hard drive). If your hard drive is less that 182 MB (approx),setup will not be able to create a complete swap file and will run out of hard disk.
d. It won't stop though. It keeps plugging away and brings up setup2, where you configure your system... keyboard, mouse, lilo, nic, root password, etc. None of this actually works because there is no space on the hard drive to put anything. Some of the steps may appear to be working, but the important stuff will not function.
e. If you don't mind losing some stuff to get a functioning Linux system with a small hard drive here is what you do. Exit out of setup2 and cd /mnt/peanut. That is where the hard drive is mounted from the ram boot of Linux.
f. Some things you might not want: /opt/kde - the whole thing. You will lose all the GUI capabilities, but it saves you about 30 MB. Another thing to lose: /usr/opt/netscape - the whole thing. If this system is standalone,you won't be going out on the Internet anyway. There are lots of other things to get rid off. Go through everything and rm what you don't want. If you end up removing something really important, you can alwaysre-install - it is very fast.
g. After you have cleaned out some disk space, run setup2 again. The configuration utilities should work now.
h. Another hint: If you install off of cdrom, the boot image vmlinuz may notcopy correctly to /boot. When you boot from the cd, the boot image will be at /initrd/mnt/vmlinuz. Copy it from there to /boot on your hard drive. LILO will not install correctly if vmlinuz is not in /boot.
6. LINUX CLUSTER Future design
uses for my Linux cluster. Beowulf ... maybe. Multi-cpu threaded applications.
I will include the software as I write it for these multi-threaded applications. Take a look at the software I have available now.
I am working on more. More details to come...
7. SECURITY! Get a good firewall and keep it running. A friend at work suggested BlackIceand I have installed and am running on my gateway machine. It worksgreat. If you think you are safe, go to Gibson Research at http://grc.com/ and let them run their ShieldsUp! probe on your machine - you will probably be surprised. After you have done that, go get BlackIce at http://advice.networkice.com/or ZoneAlarm at http://www.zonealarm.com/.
8. MULTIPLE MONITOR SUPPORT in Windows 98 and Windows 2000. This is one of Windows' best features. I have reworked the main development computers in the basement to allow multiple monitors on one computer. One of the Pentiums now had three PCI video cards and drives three monitors. This allows lots of work space in compilers, editors, and multiple applications up at once. I now have two computer with two monitors each.
Here is the link to the complete how-to on Microsoft's resource website http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q182/7/08.asp.
Supposedly you can drive up to 9 monitors with 9 AGP/PCI video cards, but if you plan to drive that many, you should get a multiple monitor video card from Matrox or Colorgraphics. My main development machine at work had 8 monitors driven off of two quad-display Colorgraphics video cards because of the huge amount of information being displayed (I had every monitor full of data). Home use probably doesn't require quite so much in the way of display. I had several PCI video cards sitting unused so I thought I would give it a try. The complete list of Microsoft supported video cards is available on the Microsoft website, but you can check with video card vendors for updated drivers. For example, Matrox MGA video cards are not listed on the Microsoft site, but if you go to Matrox's drivers page http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/, you can get the latest drivers; they work for multiple monitors. I have a Matrox MGA video card, S3 325, and Diamond Stealth 3000 64V in one my main development machine.
If you can not get your video cards to work, re-arrange the order and make sure you have the newest drivers. I tried several combinations before I finally found one that worked with all three cards; there were several combos where only two cards worked. My Matrox MGA and Diamond Stealth 3000 would not work together if the Matrox was primary. The Matrox would work fine as primary with the standard Win 98 SE drivers, but not as secondardy. I had to make the Matrox secondary (with the new drivers from Matrox) and move the Diamond to primary to get both to work. The S3 325 worked in any spot. The first card in order on the PCI bus will be the primary, so that will be the one that single monitor applications use (like most games). The final result for my setup is three monitors and lots of video space for work and play.
9. HOME WEBSERVERS & DYNAMIC REDIRECTION There are some pretty neat applications and configurations available for free that allow you to set up http (web page) and ftp (file transfer) servers at home. Do you have a LOT of pictures you want to share with someone, but your ISP limits you to 5 or 10 MB of web-space? No problem - as long as your computer is connected to the Internet, you have all the web-space you need on your own machine. Set up a web server on your own machine and tell people your own IP address. Where do you get this IP address?
I'm glad you asked. An easy way to do this in Windows 9X is to run WINIPCFG - try it right now. Click on Start->Run-> and type WINIPCFG in the Open box. You will get a small window that lists your Internet adaptors. They should include your dial-up adaptor or NIC device. Select the one you use to connect to the Internet and it will show your current IP address. I say current IP address because your IP usually changes every time you reconnect to the Internet through your ISP. This is called dynamic IP allocation and it is entirely normal. It even aids security a bit because hackers won't know where to go to get to your computer. Its "connection point" is always changing - it's like trying to hit a moving target. This dynamic stuff can get a bit annoying though if you want to have a static place to tell people where to go - there must be a better way!
There is. (Kinda knew that was coming, didn't you?) Go to http://www.no-ip.com/ and subscribe to their no-ip free service. No - I don't work for no-ip.com, but this service really is cool. It is free, and they don't stick ads onto your web pages; all your web pages stay on your own machine. No-ip just points people to your computer. There are a few steps to this process. Follow the directions at no-ip.com and set up an account, then select a hostname and domain that you will use. There are two parts to a computer name, the host and domain. The domain is the last two words in a website (www.ebay.com -> domain= ebay.com). The hostname is everything that comes before the domain (www.ebay.com -> hostname=www). No-ip owns several domains, you just pick the hostname and domain combination you will use.
For example, when I set up our home computer, I choose goodhouse.no-ip.com <--That link may not always work - our computer is not on ALL the time. When someone types that URL into there browser, the browser goes to the domain "no-ip.com" and tries to find the host "goodhouse". The no-ip.com DNS (domain name server) redirects them to my computer (goodhouse). The best part is the free update software that no-ip.com provides. Install it on your computer and whenever you re-connect to the Internet, it automatically retrieves your new IP address and sends it to the no-ip.com domain name server. That is the dynamic redirection part: the result is that no one needs to remember a string of numbers (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx), all they need is one static name. No-ip takes care of the rest.
Back to the web and ftp servers. There are many freeware, shareware, and commercial web servers and ftp servers available. Go to http://www.download.com/ and search for them. Make sure you are looking for an http/ftp server, not client. HTTP clients are things like Microsoft Internet Exploror or Netscape Navigator/Communicator. FTP clients are things like Cute-FTP or WS-FTP. They allow you to download files on other computers to your computer, and vice versa (for FTP). There must be an HTTP or FTP server on the external compter for your downloads/uploads to work. A good, free, easy to use HTTP and FTP server all in one is Xitami. Search for a server at download.com or follow this direct link http://www.xitami.com/ to Xitami - you won't be disappointed. Good luck.
10. VIRTUAL NETWORK COMPUTING (VNC)
Do you have extra machines that you want to run but don't have
enough monitors, keyboards and mice? You could use a KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) switch, or
you could set up those machines as terminal servers. They are controlled remotely using
software on another machine. I am using Virtual
Network Computing (VNC) from Cambridge and AT&T. It is free and works
great. You install the server on whatever machine you want to control (while you
have a monitor, keyboard, andmouse hooked up) and the client on the machine you will be
controlling from. Once the server is installed, that machine no longer needs any
input or output control devices except a network connection. Turn the machine on,
log onto it from the remote controlling machine and you are presented with a full, virtual
screen of the remote machine. You can also log on in passive mode to see what is
being done on that remote machine. Do your kids have computers in their rooms and
you want to see what they are doing? No problem - they won't even know you are
there. VNC supports Windows (all versions), Solaris and Linux.
11. OVERALL COMPUTER SETUP Here are some shots as I slowly built up the main computer stack in the basement. These are thumbnails, so click to see a bigger version.
