Setting up a LAN

[Doug]

I just recently subscribed to Broadband and have 3 towers connected to the
internet and working great. I was wondering how I can communicate between
them locally without losing my firewall integrity from internet protection.
Thanks in advance for any help and if there is a better place to post this
type of message, please direct me to it. Thanks.

Doug

 

[Malke]

If your lan is behind a router with DHCP and NAT then make sure all of
your computers are on the same workgroup and make sure that windows
firewall isn't blocking file and printer sharing then you'll be able to
share files and printers. If you have a linksys or netgear router then
the router functions as a real hardware stealth mode firewall, the
firewall put on vista is no longer needed if you have one of these
routers.

I disagree. While NAT provides some protection by doing "security by
obscurity", it isn't a full-fledged firewall. And DHCP does nothing in the
security field at all. If a consumer-level router is used, a software
firewall should also be used.

If you want to drop the software firewall, use a real firewall hardware
appliance at the perimeter. You could even run UntangleIT on one of your
own dedicated boxen.

Malke

 

[Malke]

I just recently subscribed to Broadband and have 3 towers connected to the
internet and working great. I was wondering how I can communicate between
them locally without losing my firewall integrity from internet
protection. Thanks in advance for any help and if there is a better place
to post this
type of message, please direct me to it. Thanks.

Since you apparently have a router, all you need to do is set up
file/printer sharing on your Local Area Network (LAN). Since you didn't
mention what operating systems you're running, here are general network
setup instructions for XP and Vista:

Excellent, thorough, yet easy to understand article about File/Printer
Sharing in Vista. Includes details about sharing printers as well as files
and folders:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx

For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see
caveat in Item A below).

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall; or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls
such as the built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3)
not having identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines;
4) trying to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer
Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on
XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this
will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a
third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm
Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're
fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance
with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you
would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not
need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords
assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just
need to exist and match on all machines. If you wish a machine to boot
directly to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for
convenience, you can do this. The instructions at this link work for both
XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

DO NOT NEGLECT TO ASSIGN PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES.

D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Cente, turn off Simple
File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab).

E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home
directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those
directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder.
See the first link above for details about Vista sharing.

Malke