February 23, 2012

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Computer Networking

Networking computers

Computer Networking - LAN Networking

Computer Networking - LAN Networking

Most people have more than one computer in a location and it really helps if they can communicate.With a few computers on a network, many things such as file sharing/transferring, access to printers and sharing internet connections can be very helpful.

These days, getting your computers “on the same page” is simpler and easier than ever – but not without it’s perils. Many people can set these networks up themselves. They can get their computers out to the internet without a problem. But how about people getting back into YOUR network? Encryption is a must to protect your networks. Someone randomly driving by your location could very easily access your computer network if improper networking has been setup.

Lizardwebs will network your computers with wired/wireless connections as desired to provide you appropriate protection. It’s not that complex, but many people are just not aware of the methods needed to protect a network.

Trust Lizardwebs to give you the additional peace of mind to prevent curious folks from peeking at your documents and computers. Small networks can be easily setup to provide printer and file sharing between your computers in a morning or afternoon. Call us today!

Networking Home Computers

Home computer networking is a slightly different beast than business computers. The goal with home computers is to usually give complete and total access to all computers to all the data available. This can be things like shared media folders available on the network, shared documents, pictures and any number of things.

In a home network, if you have more than a couple machines, Lizardwebs recommends making one of those machines your “server” – and we use the term loosely. It’s a whole lot easier to keep the majority of files on a single machine designated as the primary host machine. Some locations will have a single central server and that is one of our preferred ways of setting up a home network. Others tend to have a looser setup with shared folders on all the computers. Honestly, it’s just plained confusing when you have a computer network with a bunch of machines and network shares. Sure, the computer geeks will be able to find everything, but when you put the average home user in that situation, they’ll likely have problems just figuring out where the network machines are! Make everyone’s life easy: designate a single machine as the source of all your network shared files, put in proper network shared folders, and drag a shortcut to everyone’s desktop that’s on the network.

Basics of Computer Networking

There are a number of things that should be remembered when networking computers.

  • All machines DO need to be connected either via wireless (WLAN) or wired connections (LAN). Wireless networking has become such a no-brainer these days that we highly recommend it – it’s just a whole lot easier to deal with. No network cables strung around the room. You don’t end up with 6″ too little cable if you decide to shift your computer from one side of the desk to the other.
  • IF you have designated a network server (as mentioned above), we recommend that you do have that setup as a wired connection directly to your wireless router. That way, you will be getting top network speed to all your wireless units particularly if you have a number of network clients.
  • On a Windows network, make sure that all machines are in the same workgroup. Windows by default will create your machine in the “WORKGROUP” workgroup. That’s fine to leave it as is. If you want to get fancy, name your workgroup something else to reflect your household, “LIZARD” is one of my favorites. When you click on the proper icon for “Show Workgroup Computers”, you should be able to see all the network computers at one time.
Computer Network Settings

Computer Network Settings

  • Machines must be on the same IP address subnet.This means that the IP address of all machines must be in a compatible range. If you have a network router, the easiest way is to setup your router to provide DHCP addresses to all machines on the subnet. That way you are pretty much guaranteed that you will get compatible IPs on all machines. If you just insert your wireless card/usb fob and install the drivers, it will normally immediately pick up an IP.
  • You may quickly get your IP information by going to a command prompt screen and typing in “ipconfig /all”. You’ll get something like this IPCONFIG /ALL output The relevant information is all in this part for most needs. IP should in one of the 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, or 172.16.x.x-172.31.x.x ranges. The most common is the 192.168 range. Just make sure that the first 3 octets are the same (192.168.0) and then the last number between 1 and 254. Sometimes you can end up with a 192.168.1 and a 192.168.0 and you’ll end up with issues most of the time.
  • Make sure that the gateway is the same on all machines for the most part. It will usually be the ip address of your router. In the above setup, it would be 192.168.0.254. Many times they setup themselves out of the box as a 192.168.x.1.
  • IF you have special needs, you may hard-code IP addresses.I personally like to hard-code all the IPs on my internal machines – particularly servers – to ensure that regardless of what happens be it a DHCP failure, a server failure, etc – that those IPs will always stay the same. To the right is a fairly standard setup for hard coded network IP settings. This is from a Windows 7 screen. It will look very similar on other Windows versions.
  • The biggest issue that we run into in networked machines is not being able to see or interact with other shared folders.When there are only machines of one OS or another on the network, it usually is not an issue. However, when you end up with a mixed OS network with XP, Vista, Windows 7, it can be an issue.
    • There are any number of problems and we’re not going into them all here.
    • Standard is to setup all shares with SHARING ENABLED for everybody with FULL SHARE permissions. Then control access via the security permissions. On a home network in which you do want to share everything with no restrictions, just give the Everyone full access. There are a ton of ways to customize this. Do a web search for more detailed info.
    • If you are trying to share out Windows 7 folders to other OS machines on the network, do NOT ENABLE HOMEGROUPS.
  • Quick Router SetupWe recommend going directly into the router via a web browser. Routers many times want you to install software to access the router. This is USUALLY not needed and just another piece of garbage on your computer. Go through the printed literature – routers usually have a preferred location to set themselves up. 192.168.1.1 is popular. Then just type that address into the browser URL bar and config away. You should also find the default admin password for your router in the documentation.
  • If you are using wireless network setups (WLAN), YOU NEED TO SETUP SECURITY ON YOUR ROUTER.
    • Make sure you disable remote wireless router administration. There is going to be a setting there somewhere that disables remote administration via wireless. This will ensure that if anyone tries to get into your router and change settings, they will need to be physically in your home and on your network. This prevents the hacker types from brute force hacking your router and bending it to their will!
    • Encryption – WEP is the bare minimum security protocol but is compatible with everything for the most part. Use one of the heavier security protocols like WPA to truly protect your network.
    • By adding security on your wireless network, you are locking out the rest of the world (except perhaps the truly devoted wardriving hacker type). At a minimum, you are keeping the neighbor’s kids from browsing your personal files on your home network just by clicking into the available wireless networks settings tab!
    • It bears repeating, unless you enable wireless security on your network, you are making it possible (even probable) that someone will be connecting to your network and very possibly snooping around your computer network!
  • I personally find it easiest to use similar if not identical network cards and network equipment throughout the network. That doesn’t mean you can’t use a Linksys network card, a TrendNet USB network plugin, and a DLink router. They SHOULD all be compatible. However, it’s a lot easier if you keep seeing the same screens from machine to machine.
  • If some weird issue occurs, or if you again want to ensure that your computers ARE looking exactly where you want them to, consider using a HOSTS file. While this is usually not needed, some occasions DO arise where you may want or need to ensure that the computer name “homeserver” is associated with “192.168.0.20″. See Wikipedia for more info on HOSTS files.