Setting up a small, secure, wired network

[drkclw]

I have a couple PCs that need to share the internet. Three of them are used just to check email, listen to music, web browse, that kind of thing, the last one is an HTPC. I'd like to be able to share videos and music on the HTPC with the other 3 computers. I also would like to be able to transfer files to and from work to my PC (a non-HTPC), share my printer with the other local PCs, and play games online. Anything else I'd like to disable to make my home network as secure as possible. Can anyone suggest how I should go about doing so or any online guides.

All the PCs run Win XP Pro, all wires have been run, I have my cable modem running and a Dlink 604 router currently on default settings. I have decent computer knowledge just no networking experience, any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: drkclw
I also would like to be able to transfer files to and from work to my PC.

This is the only part that impacts network security. Everything else is client security - antivirus, patches, avoiding admin accounts, etc. You just set up a router to negotiate the internet connection and then have it do NAT for the PC's - all of which is pretty much the default setup.

As for file-sharing, that gets a little trickier. What you definitely don't want to do is use Windows file-sharing (SMB/CIFS) across the Internet. That's highly insecure, however you cut it. What I would do is install Cygwin and SSHD so that your home PC can be an sftp server. Then use a SFTP client like WinSCP on your work machine to grab files from home. For that, the only network configuration is to tell your router to forward inbound port 22 to your PC's IP address, which should be easy to do from the router menus. Other options would be installing a regular FTP server (slightly less secure, and sometimes more complicated network-wise) or using some commercial program like PCAnywhere (but why pay just for file-sharing?).