Would this DSL LAN setup work? Better ideas???

[gredodenda]

I'm going for a DSL LAN setup for my church and I have this setup design that might work. Please tell me if this is ok.

To connect 6 PCs
I have to wire DSL CAT5 cable from an apartment to the 2nd floor office of church. How long a CAT5 cable can be used wihtout any loss in speed? without using repeaters...
After bring DSL CAT5 cables into the office, I going to connect cable to the DSL modem and then connect DSL modem to the 8-port Switch Hub.
All the PCs will be then connected to the 8-port switch hub. I've heard switch hub is much better than just a hub.


What about a router?? WHat is it for? I see a lot of people talking about it, but do I need it?

What type of CAT5 shoul I buy for best connection and speed??
I need cables for outside coming into a building and I need cables inside the building for internal use.
Please give me your advice for better LAN setup. I really appreciate your help. Thanks

 

[Russ]

<< How long a CAT5 cable can be used wihtout any loss in speed? without using repeaters... >>



100 meters.



<< I've heard switch hub is much better than just a hub. >>



A switch is &quot;smart&quot;, a hub is stupid. In other words, the switch remembers the destinations on the LAN and routes traffic only to the intended destination where a hub just hunts around and throws it everywhere until it sticks.



<< What about a router?? WHat is it for? I see a lot of people talking about it, but do I need it? >>



A router provides NAT (Network Address Translation). This allows your inside network (LAN) to use the outside network (WAN) single IP address. Yes, you need some form of routing, whether it be a hardware router, or proxy software such as Sygate. (Unless you have seven static IP addresses).

The best setup would be to get a single port DSL router to plug in to the modem, plug an 8 port switch in to it, and the six systems in to the switch.

The router will act as your DHCP server and dynamically assign IP addresses to the systems, as well as do your NAT for you (which provides a measure of firewall protection).

Russ, NCNE

 

[gredodenda]

Thanks RUSS!!!

I'm very new to this. Since I've subscribed to the DSL service, I have a static IP Address for internet connection. Can I just put that IP address to each computer as you normally do with one computer??? Is there something else to do? If so I will write a another topic about how to setup a LAN computer within OS system. Not all the 6 PCs have same OS.
One NT 4.0 service pack 6
One WinMe
Four win98 4nd edition

I'm guessing that hardware router is better than proxy software such Sygate??? right??

 

[Russ]

<< Can I just put that IP address to each computer as you normally do with one computer??? >>



Nope. Each system must have a unique IP address. This is what NAT is all about.



<< Is there something else to do? >>



Yep. Buy a router. Let me use part of my network as an example.

I use one of my static IP addresses for internet access. It is 207.108.218.137. This address is assigned as the &quot;WAN&quot;, or outside world address to my Linksys router.

The router has a gateway address of 192.168.1.1. This is an INTERNAL, or LAN address that cannot be accessed from the outside world. Using DHCP, the router assigns internal address to each of the systems on the network, in series. For example:

192.168.1.2
192.168.1.3
192.168.1.4

Etc.

Thus, the router is &quot;translating&quot; that WAN address in to multiple LAN addresses and providing a unique address to each system in the network.



<< I'm guessing that hardware router is better than proxy software such Sygate??? >>



In my opinion, yes.

Russ, NCNE

 

[mgpaulus]

Date Posted: Jan/09/2001 6:43 PM


>> I'm guessing that hardware router is better than proxy software such Sygate??? right??

I find that a hardware router is better for 2 reasons. They don't have much to do, so what they do, they do well. And 2nd, when you have a portal machine with proxy software, every time you do anything with that machine, especially maintenance of any sort, you run the risk of knocking your entire lan off the Net. Less risk of that with a dedicated router.