Network setup...

[Paddy]

I am in the middle of reconfiguring my network.
As you may remember my router/modem died and I replaced it with a ADSL2 modem and a WRT54G Router. This turned out to be too limited for my means so I have tried to setup a smoothwall based network.

Everything is in place except for the smoothwall router - I need to wait for some NICs from ebay. I also havn't run patch cables from the patch panel to the switch, but that will take seconds once i have my wiring mapped out.

I think I have everything mapped out in my head (attached is a brief powerpoint slide demonstrating the network).

I have a KVM that will service the smoothwall router, mail and file servers.

I need a PC on the green network to be able to access shares on the fileserver and also use remote desktop on the mail server.

Have I overlooked anything? Would it be easier if I assigned the red network Class A IPs (including the red NIC on smoothwall)?.

Any suggestions?

[Paddy]

You'll need to rename the txt file to ppt as MURC doesn't support uploading of ppt files.

[MultimediaMan]

You want your fileserver on the DMZ? That could be bad.

You can open a pinhole from Green to Orange for RDP, that's no big deal.

What version Smoothwall are you going to be using? The Express 2.0 only supports 3 interfaces: Red (Internet), Orange (DMZ), and Green (Protected LAN).

There is a Mod for Smoothwall which adds support for a Wireless network (Netwhiz' Blue Modification) it's an interface which supports some wireless security features but does not support any wireless adapters. Smothwall Express 3.0 Alpha 2 (aka "Panda") also has some rudimentary support for a "Purple" Wireless Interface - but like the Express 2.0 Mod it's an interface which supports some wireless security features but does not support any wireless adapters.

Development of Smoothwall Express 3.0 has been hampered due to the many kernel-level changes which have required completely rewriting many common modules.

[Paddy]

I have not settled on a build of smoothwall yet.
I am running a FTP server on the fileserver (hence in orange). I could move it to green but i'd have to use the mail server for FTP, which isn't a big deal, but I dont want lots of duplicate data on different servers....

[Chucky Cheese]

Home Network

Paddy,

I think i might have a similar setup as the one you are setting up...

when i had this house built last year i had it completely pre-wired wilh OnQs structured wiring system from a local company...here is some web information..this included cat 6, cat 5 for phone, quad shield rg6 for cable and an audio/visual bus. I have multiple OnQ panels(2) in the basement, 1 for A/V/Security and the other for PCN(phone, cable, network). the router, patch panels and gigaswitch are in the PCN "closet". i purchased 12 faceplates and had them strategically placed aroud the house...even 1 in the finished garage.

anyways, i couldn't surf the net while accessing the FTP server no matter how i patched so i went and got another network card and connected them to the structured wiring, patched both of them through the router(..OnQ brand) and then "bridged" both adapters from the "view connections" link off of My Networks. This allowed me to use both networks seamlesly.

i could be wrong but this also looks to be more secure because now when i do an "ipconfig /all" command the only thing that shows is the bridge...with a MAC address that was generated by windows. even "route print" only shows the ms loopback and the bridge. it appears that my physical adapters are hidden behind this bridge...

i don't know for sure if this will help but it might be worh considering...

cc

[Paddy]

Cheers! It's all down to what Smoothwall can do. I can't try it until this idiot from ebay mails me the NICs.

Oh and my RAID 5 array died today.
One of the disks didn't survive the transition from my pc to fileserver
I thought that RAID 5 would work when one disk was dead?
The adaptec 2400a reports it as degraded and XP wont see it.
With hindsight I think the drive has been on the blink for a few days, because it would take ten mins or so to initialise the array in the morning... hmm....

In any case, Seagate wont advance ship a replacement to the UK, so I have to wait for the RMA. I am only using 3 out of 4 channels, so I might use this as an opportunity to expand the array with a 4th disk. I assume that I can do this without loosing all the data on the array?

[Wombat]

I thought that RAID 5 would work when one disk was dead?
The adaptec 2400a reports it as degraded and XP wont see it.

Yes, it should. It IS degraded, maybe the Adaptec is choosing not to export it while degraded. RAID5 works with one disk down, though probably noticably slower because it has to do all the parity work all the time now.

[Paddy]

I guess all i can do is wait until after the bank holiday and replace the defective disk and see what happens.

[Paddy]

hmmm... now that is odd.

Device Manager can see the RAID 5 array, but it wont show up in Computer Management. I'd be much more comfortable if I could see the disk and get some data from it....

[Dilitante1]

so no sign of it in disk management?
at worst it should be listed as foreign and you then import it to be able to see the contents

[Paddy]

Nope. Nothing. The card takes ages to initalise during boot. If I can salvage my documents then i'll delete and rebuild the array.

[agallag]

Kind of defeats the purpose of RAID doesn't it?

[Paddy]

yup
I find that the more redundancy I add, the more chance it will fail

R-Studio is doing an excellent job of retrieving data from the disks. I just hope that I salvage everything I can't replace.

[agallag]

I don't bother with raid at home. I just use a combination of Volume Shadow Copy on the W2K3 server (for accidental deletions) combined with SyncToy to another machine for drive failures.

I've found that in practice, once you have a foolproof disaster recovery setup, you'll never have another drive failure.

[Chucky Cheese]

I've found that in practice, once you have a foolproof disaster recovery setup, you'll never have another drive failure

...truer words were never spoken!

cc