Drew Wutka
dbatech at wolfwares.com
Mon Aug 23 21:09:43 CDT 2004
Arthur, a Domain will help with permissions, which is useful for file sharing, but what you are really running into is a general networking issue. I am going to explain how TCP/IP works, in general, to help you understand where the weak points are, and what you can do to correct it. To begin with, networking actually works on a lower level protocol then TCP/IP. Most current systems use Ethernet, but some still use systems like Token Ring. When a computer is connected to another computer, or to a switch/hub, that lower level protocol connects. Then TCP/IP takes over, and that is what the OS uses to actually communicate to other computers. TCP/IP is based on three settings, IP Address, Subnet Mask, and Gateway. You're IP address is your 'ID', or phone number on the network. That is the typical 'basic' education. However, to understand how an IP Address works, you have to look at the subnet and gateway also. The subnet mask is a bit comparison, which tells the IP Address what other IP addresses are on it's subnet (or in it's neighborhood). A 255 in one of the four quads, tells the IP Address, that it's neighbors will also have that same Number. A 0 tells it that the quad doesn't have to match at all. (any number in between, is telling it what bits have to match, and which ones don't, so a 254 (which has the 1 bit turned off...) tells it that it's neighbors have either the same number or 1 off, (16 or 17....not 16 or 15 (because 16 and 17 have the same bits, except for the 1 bit, and 15 has different bits from 16 (including the 1 bit)). Now, that tells the OS what other machines should be out there, but what if it needs to go beyond it's subnet? That's what the gateway is for. The gateway tells the OS where a router is, that the computer can use to go beyond it's subnet. (Routers connect two or more subnets together). Okay, that's the nitty gritty. Sounds simple? <grin> Now for the fun part. Actually communicating to another machine. If you just communicated by IP Addresses, if the hardware was setup right, and everything is on the same subnet, then there would be no problem. However, a human wants to connect to another computer by name (and actually, so do certain OS functions....). So, you need to have a method of getting an IP Address, from a computer name. There are a few methods. One, use Host Files. This is a manually created (by you) list of Computer names to their IP addresses. This method works, but it's hardly flexible, and requires constant upkeep whenever a change on your network occurs (lose a machine, change a machine, add a machine). Then there is Computer Browsing. LOL. This is a literal Nightmare. Essentially, when computers are on a network, they try to browse their subnet. When other machines are found, they hold an 'election' to determine who will be the 'master browser', which all of the other computers will report too. It works great, if you leave all of your machines up 24/7, and never reboot them. Because then one of them will become the Master Browser, and stay that way. Unfortunately, that scenario is near impossible, so machines are rebooted, or shut down, and the whole system makes the Florida ballot process look well organized. Ever notice that while you may have problems hitting a share on one machine, you have no problem going to http://whatchamakallit.com ? That's because when you cruise the internet, you use something called a DNS server. (Domain Name Server), which TCP/IP uses as a literal 'phone book' to provide IP to computer/domain name information. Using a DNS server (along with 2 other 'services') that are available in a Windows Server OS, you can make your home network just as stable as surfing the net. The other two services are DHCP, and WINS. (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Windows Internet Naming Service). DHCP hands out IP Addresses. WINS acts a little like DNS, but keeps notes of other things. Here's what you do, you can use the wizards in the Windows Server OS to turn on DNS, WINS, and DHCP. Go into your DHCP control panel, and setup an address pool. (Pick anything you want....192.168.0.xxx or 10.10.0.xxx...etc.). Then go into your scope options, and setup a few things. Setup the 003 option (Router), which will be the IP address of your router (the server if you are using Internet Connection sharing), then 006 the DNS servers (again, the server...since you just setup DNS on it), then 044 for the WINS server. After that, you just have to go to the other machines, and set their IP Addresses to use DHCP, and you're done. (One note, you will need to setup in your DNS server, a few 'forwarding DNS servers', which would be the DNS servers you ISP provide you with. You're local machines will then ask your DNS for internet domain information, and if it doesn't know, it will go ask the forwarders, and cache the information.). Having you're own DNS server internally can be quite handy. One of the perks is that you can assign you're own 'shortcuts'. For example, when I am at home, if I type Email in the address of Internet Explorer, it brings up my work's Outlook Web Access site. A lot easier then typing in the entire site. Hope this helps, feel free to ask specifics if you want. Drew -----Original Message----- From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 2:06 PM To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues' Subject: [dba-Tech] Advice on Consolidating Workgroups, Domain etc. For various reasons (mostly my own stupidity, but also including other reasons), my home network contains two workgroups. There are 6 computers, one of which is a server. Two PCs are running windows 2k, the other PCs are running winXP, and the server is running win2k advanced server. Workgroup 1 consists of Rock, Excalibur, Lancelot and Zappa. Workgroup 2 consists of Avalon and Guinivere. >From my main PC (Rock), I can see Zappa, a shared folder on Avalon, and Excalibur. (To be accurate, I can see a shared folder on Avalon, and that's all that's shared there. But when I click the "Computers near me" icon, I can't see Avalon. Is that normal?) I cannot see Lancelot, which runs XP and shares nothing, so I guess that makes sense. I cannot see Guinivere at all, and only the shared folder on Avalon. These latter two run win2k. Ideally, I'd like to consolidate the two workgroups into one, or possibly consolidate them into a domain and then lose the workgroups. As you can gather, I know very little about networking and even less when there are two OS'es involved. Can anyone provide suggestions, advice, or even better a step-by-step recipe for how to do this? TIA, Arthur _______________________________________________ dba-Tech mailing list dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com