Home Network Pro - The Site for Home Network 'Professionals'

Last month review:

Ask yourself these questions?

• Do you have a network diagram of your home network?
• Is your home network diagram current?
• Have you documented your workstation/server software installation?
• Have you documented your home network hardware configuration in the event of failure, theft or disaster?

You really should have a home network diagram for a number of reasons. There are times when you may need to decide how to troubleshoot a failing device, or provide information to a third party for configuration or integration issues.

There are a few benefits we should cover here:

The ability to troubleshoot the network

A good documentation set allows you to find answers to problems and reduces the need to research the same problem each time the same problems occur. A network diagram can help identify problems in a more efficient timeframe..

Documents what is in the network

Important network information is saved for future use.

Improved network design

A network diagram helps when it is time to consider add-on equipment and decide what services already exist and what needs to be changed.

Information that needs to be included in the network documentation set:

• Logical network diagram of all components
• Device logs that show pertinent information helpful to the discovery of network information
• Physical network diagrams of all hardware like routers, switches, modems and servers/workstations
• Hardware information and hardware settings or manuals
• Configuration information for all networking components
• Protocols used on all workstations
• DNS settings
• Information related to all security information and accounts on all systems.
• Passwords should be stored in a secure area but the location noted
• Procedures used on the network for starting up, shutting down, adding routes, etc.
• Security policies being used on routers and servers/workstations
• Insurance information, photos of the equipment, receipts and software licenses

This month: Administration information in the documents

Network Administration Resources

• People to call when you have problems - who do you normally call when you have problems on your Network (LAN or WAN)
    - Support organizations like GeekSquad, Chat Forums, On-Line resources
    - email addresses, phone numbers and URLs that have been helpful in the past
• Information about all the hardware vendors being used in your network
• all information, licenses, support agreements you have for all of your software

Information or Logs from all Hardware/Software as well as Upgrade/Patch Information

Log information for each network device or workstation.

• Configuration information and the date of that information
• Update or patch versions for all of the software/bios or firmware components

Document all processes and procedures used on your home network

General network administration

• User/Directory creation processes
• Templates used
• Printers and other peripeherals and all security assigned to these devices

Server administration tasks

• Windows WINS/DNS/DOMAINinformation
• Cron jobs
• Backups, patches, auditing log files, etc.

Check back next month for continuation of this article series....