I would like to set up a home network and have one machine as a file server. Through searching through various forums, google, microsoft, and samba sites I have gained alot of information, but I have have a few questions for my setup at home.

1. We have a Westell 327w DSL Modem/Router from Verizon, an 8-port switch, 4 machines (2-Windows and 2-Linux -different configurations), plus the soon to be file server. I read to keep the network private, you can use a router (as apposed to a switch which will make the network public - I read that on another forum, please let me know if this is accurate). My question is, because none of the Windows machines are connected to the internet, they are work machines only and just need to pull files from the server, do all the systems need to be connected to the router?

2. If the answer to the above question is - that I need all systems connected to the router, then how can I make the Windows machines not connect to the internet, and still be able to connect to the file server?

3. Because there are both Windows and Linux machines, I still want the File Server to be an easy setup, but because Linux systems are involved, I cannot have the File Server as a Windows machine (to do a simple folder, then have it shared). Can Samba be configured as easily (as a Windows machine would) and what other packages would I need with Samba to make the File Server work? (Do I need ftp? apache? webmin? something else?)

4. What else do I need to know for setting up a File Server for my home?


Many thanks in advance to everyone's help!

welcome to LQ.

your ADSL modem has a 8 port switch, right? this does not mean that it is only a switch. it is a router too, it will route between your LAN and the WAN (wide area network, meaning: the internet). traffic destined to an address outside of your LAN's range will be 'routed' out to the internet. packets from your LAN destined to you LAN will stay on you LAN.
to prevent the windows pc's from acessing the internet, you can either delete the default route in their routing table (if you assign addresses statically, just remove the default gateway). or you can set rules in your firewall (your adsl router/modem should have one accessable throu a web interface)

about the fileserver: you can use a windows pc to share the files, this might even be easier than setting up samba. if you want to use different permission settings within the shares, use an ntfs partition.
the samba setup is fairly straight forward, esp. in Debian (ubuntu comes from debian, so it should not be much different there, actually more simple)

1. You definitely want a router to be between you and your connection to the internet. Routers do Network Address Translation (NAT) which serves to protect your network from outside attacks. Any low end router will allow you to set up a private network and will route any computers you want to access the internet through the public i.p. address that your isp assigns you.

2. Because your router controls your network you will want to run all your computers through it -- even those that cannot access the internet. Your router will give you the option to only allow those computers to have access to the internet that you want to have access. This is called MAC address filtering.

3. You can use the Windows machine as your server and connect to it via your linux box. I currently adminster a network that has a Windows Server 2000 sharing the files and Linux workstations connecting to it. However, I would highly recommend using a linux box as your file server -- especially if you are running Win 9x. Linux is more stable and Samba is not too difficult to configure. There is plenty of documentation on how to do it.

If all you want to do is serve up files, you don't need any of the other applications you mentioned. A barebones linux install running Samba should do the trick.

4. Since you are hooking up five computers to your router you will either want to find one with five ports (be careful to not confuse the uplink port as one you can use for your network) or else you will need to purchase a switch as well.

That should do it. Have fun.




Ooops. I missed the bit that your modem is a router. You should have no problem with ports or need to buy a router. Just configure it correctly.

Thank you all for the great information!

Hmm this seems slightly trickier than I thought it would because there is another variable that got thrown in... but a few more questions then I think I should be good.

1. Can a workstation be a file server as well? I now have to keep two of the machine seperate as its own network, so one machine can serve files to the other.

2. (For the other three systems,) One will be an online machine, but now planned to have 2 NIC's, one to access the internet and one to go into the file server. The file server can then go into the switch and serve the files it need. Can that work?

1. A workstation can be a file server. Just share the folders with the files you want to share.

2. It seems like it should work but I have never tried a setup like that. If it is security you are after, it seems easier to me to run everything through the router and then set up the security you need there.

David

Ok I think everything is ready, I have one problem. The server does not seem to be sending out a signal. I can unhook the cable from the switch and plug it into the router, and get the internet, but I can seem to to have the server send a signal to the other machines.
The server is running Debian Linux

Thanks everyone!

PS. The server cannot ping to the Windows machine, it says network is unreachable. The windows machine is saying it is sending out but not recieving anything, if that helps.

Should eth0 be up to be sending out data? (and how would I know its up via command line)

PSS - It seems as if the switch is not giving out an IP number, nor is DHCPDISCOVER seems to be getting anything and in result eth0 is not up. The switch is plugged in, and cables work .

If it helps any, the network looks like this

File server -- switch --- (nic2 in) Linux Machine (nic1 for internet)
....................................--- Windows machine