Need Help with my home network! Will this work??

[dborden]

Hey guys. I've been thinking about setting up a home network and want to know if my plans will work.

MY SETUP
I have Road Runner cable for Internet access. Then I've got a cable modem and a DLINK Wireless G Router. I want to connect a WIN2003 Server with a CAT5 cable to the router and have it run as a domain controller, DHCP, DNS, FTP, Teamspeak. The server would be pointing to itself for DNS and have DNS fowarding to the Road Runner DNS servers. The servers gateway would be pointed to the router. I would then turn off DHCP on my DLINK router so I can run it off my server. I also have 2 computers and 1 laptop all wireless.

MY QUESTIONS
1) Will the computer devices be able to get IP addresses from the domain controller if they are connected wirelessly to the DLINK router if the router is not running DHCP but the Server connected to the router is?

2) The workstations would be pointing to the Domain controller for DNS, and get their IPs from the domain controller as well. Their gateway would be the router. Would this allow them to get to the internet or do i need to setup something else to get internet working for the other wirelessly connected devices?

3) Can I also throw a wireless access point into the mix and have everything still work?

Here is an extremely simple diagram.

 

[lancer]

yes yes and yeahhhh, what yeahh

 

[mlakrid]

Yes it will work, however... why not let hte router do the DHCP requests?

If you are worried about security you can base it off mac addresses at your router as well... all Im saying is not to overload your 2003 server. Or set an IP range and set everything static.

Looks good though...

Mike A!

 

[dborden]

Yes it will work, however... why not let hte router do the DHCP requests?

If you are worried about security you can base it off mac addresses at your router as well... all Im saying is not to overload your 2003 server. Or set an IP range and set everything static.

Looks good though...

Mike A!

It won't be overloading the 2003 server. Server is beefy and can handle it.

My biggest concern was internet access for the pcs and laptop. Read alot about needing ICS or nating or whatever. Was hoping internet would work out of the box.

 

[kcnychief]

Well, I'll throw in my .02....

#1- I've never done this myself, and am not 100% sure that it will work to be honest. I could be wrong there, but I don't see logically how a Domain Controller, acting as a DHCP server, can broadcast IP Addresses to wireless devices. Let's say for argument's sake, it did work, I would still recommend letting the DLINK do the work, if for no other reason, less administrative overhead.

#2- This works, as long as the DNS forwarding is configured correctly which it sounds like you have.

 

[DwarfData]

I would recommend putting a second network card in your server. Have your internet router connected to the first NIC and then your LAN connected to the second NIC. The routing service in W2K3 will bridge the connections and also work as a basic firewall. This is also probably the most secure way of setting up your network. The only way in via the network is through the first NIC.
Ensure your Wireless Access Point is secured and everything should be fine. This is the way my network is setup, although I am using Wired & Wireless and everything works fine, including DHCP.

As long as your clients have their default gateway setup as your server, then they will enjoy full internet access. This can be configured through DHCP as well.

 

[Admiral Michael]

If you do a login system with a server then the wireless may not work correctly as you would need to connect to the network before you login, usually it connects to the network after login. I know my Intel wifi card has a option for prelogin connections.

I dont run a domain controller but I have my server handle DHCP and it works fine for both wifi and wired.