Hi,
My question is rather about how to make a project of a network. I am a newbie in the subject. Myself I created a home a wifi-router (small black box with antenna) based network. I have three computers in home - one is connected with cable to the router the others with wifi cards, USB wifi adapters. At moment all connections are made with the help of SSH, lately I succeeded to setup FTP server (very basic). But now I have much more requirements - to build a local domain (?), to make a server for BITORENT downloads, to allow services like NFS, HTTP, SMB, maybe even to setup a computer working as a router (and server) - so summing up it is a complex task - I think that to do this I need a some kind of project - the first step - do this, the second step - do that, .... the next step - ....(?)
PLease I am hearing your advices!

I think you already know what you need to do, and just want reassurance.

Simply take a idea and run with it. Firstly I'd advise you to make sure you have samba working.

Do you have a "server" machine? If so this makes life easier. All services will run on this machine and it'll always be on running these.

If you've got FTP working then we know the network is working fine. So now look at getting samba working.

Once you've got samba working, figure out how to get other services running. Once you've done one or two, you'll be flying.

Thank you for attempt to help me but I need something much more detailed. I understand know that here are some rules which I should follow to properly create my network. My network today is nasty. I have three computers and seven systems which makes sometimes connection with ssh bit complicated. All connection at this moment are made via an explicit IP address. Up to now I don't know what to do to start using hostnames. You know I have seven hosts but only three machines. There is no one-to-one correspondence between name of host and IP address as the latter is leased by the router. Greetings.

Ok,

Do you have a "server" machine

The first thing I'd suggest you do is learn how to setup a DHCP server, with this you can assign IP's to hosts so the same host always gets the same IP

Once you've got this setup you can connect this in with DNS and start resolving the hostnames (so instead of ssh 192.168.1.2 you'd do ssh myMachineDownstairs)

Step 1.
Decide on server machine

Step 2.
Install and setup DHCP, and turn off DHCP on your router.

Step 3. enjoy static IP's

Step 4. Look into how to setup DNS


PS. What distrobution is your server going to be running? Its not an issue of one is better than another, but it'll effect how we advise you to learn about installing the software you need. No point me showing you the gentoo DHCPd guide if your using ubuntu for example.

Thank's. But what about internet connections? At this moment they are made via wireless router. So one of my computer will run DHCP server and will lease IP addresses through the network but how will be established an internet connection?
I didn't take a decision about a distribution running my server.
Now I'm using mainly Ubuntu and Slackware. From time to time I try other distros. Twice I tried install Arch but no success.

The internet part wont change for now. Eventually you can choose to run the server as a routing device as well if you wish, but for now its simplier if we leave that as it is (as it works!)

Another tip is to draw diagrams of your network, so you know which host is which, and which IP's you expect them to end up having so you can see if you've made any errors.

Eee, so my DHCP server will assign an IP to router and this IP will be an internet gateway for other computers? Am I right?

Ok the router will stay the same

When a client connects to the network, it'll request an IP.

Then your "server" will issue an ip (a static one) along with infomation about other things such as routing, dns servers and where the gateway is.

Then your system will know where to connect to (the router).

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This is my network: C1,C2,C3 are my computers and R is the wireless ruter '|' means cable, '*' means wireless connection
The connection between C2 and C3 is a direct connection using a crossover cable.

Ok, what I've described should work fine for you.

Great help. Really. Simple and exactly what I need.

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