Local Area Networks Designed by the average user
The services provided by this network include:
- File and print sharing with Linux, Windows 2000 and Windows XP
- Firewall support for incoming/outgoing traffic
- URL filtering, TCP filters and timed access for students in the houehold.
- Internet enabled television for both cable TV and Internet TV broadcasts
- Central music file sharing service using Linux/Wintel
- Wireless access to the Internet from anywhere in the house and the grounds around the home
- Wireless access is WEP encrypted and MAC filtered for pretty good security
- Comcast and SBC are separated by the firewall to prvent back door traffic into either network.
- The whole system is multi-homed to prevent outages to the working environment.
The system is comprised of off-the-shelf components and is easily built by the average home network enthusiast. To build this network you need to have a knowledge in some basic networking and basic operating system fundamentals. As this article continues, we will continue to discuss these attributes, services and capabilities.
Components used in this design and their roles:
- Comcast provided Motorola BitSurfer cablemodem - This device is connected to the Comcast cable network. The modem receives the signals from the network and sends them to the cablemodem router.
- D-Link DI-624 - This device is a router, firewall, and layer-2 switch. These components are neatly packages into an affordable unit that alos provide wireless service to the house. The protocols used on the router provide IP addresses, layer-3 routing capability as well as address management, filtering and advanced uses like logs, redirection to internal devices from the outside interface (also known as DMZ).
- Netgear RT-314 - Same as the D-Link DI-624, but there is no wireless services provided. This router is connected to the other service provider on a DSL modem.
- Speedstream DSL modem - This device is connected to the SBC DSLnetwork. The modem receives the signals from the network and sends them to the DSL switch/router.
- Sun Ultra-60 Workstation - This device is a dual-homed workstation that provides a link between both network segments created on the two layer-2 switches that are built-in to the Netgear and the D-Link devices. This workstation is running a routing process and also filters packets between the two networks to prevent any traffic from getting into the other network. The device separates the two internal networks that are both using RFC-1918 private address space.
- HP Network Hub - The hub is a 10/100 auto negotiation multi-port repeater. All traffic to any of the ports on this device are also sent out of every other port on the device.
- Linksys Network Hub - The hub is a 10/100 auto negotiation multi-port repeater. All traffic to any of the ports on this device are also sent out of every other port on the device. Simply put: We ran out of devices on the first hub.
- Servers/Workstations - Linux servers, Windows 2000 SP4workstations, XP workstations, Solaris 10 workstation - Various equipment used for web site development. research, accounting, etc.
- Internet enabled television - This was a project we first started looking into a couple of years ago. Basically, with all of the advances in video, audio and network technology, this is an extension of the normal television. The equipment needed for the Internet Enabled Television includes a pretty capable PC with medium to high quality audio and video capabilities as well as Ethernet network access. The whole design and concept is being developed into a web page and this will be available shortly.
Building this design
To build this design requires an intermediate knowledge of installation/setup and configuration with the following components:
- Broadband wireless routers - usually done through a web enabled interface
- firewall concepts would be good for outbound filters
- routing for the two networks (there may be a third for the routers to interconnect)
- wireless connectivity options
- Ethernet hubs used in home networking environments
- Ethernet cabling systems (sometimes sold in kits)
- Configuration of several operating systems that are used in the various network components
- Windows 2000/XP/2003
- Solaris 10
- SuSE Linux Version 9.3
- OpenWRT - More information available elsewhere on the site