CCNA type question (Home Network)

JooFox

I've got a couple of laptops, couple of PCs, and a Printer on a switch at home looking to configure a server in the mix as domain controller this weekend.

Currently all items auto configure IP but I want to lock it down.

I have the IP range of 192.168.1.1-254

I think I understand everything, but what should the Default Gateway on teh server be? And then should the default gateway of all devices be that of the server?

Also, do I then have to configure DNS server 1 and 2 or do they still auto configure if left blank?

Thanks :beer:

psychic_teabag

It depends.. if this is a standalone network, you don't need a gateway. If it's connected to the internet, then there's no reason not to use the router as the gateway.

A gateway is only needed when speaking to machines outside the local network : the local machines just speak to each other directly.

For DNS, again the obvious thing to do is to just use your router as the DNS server. But it does depend a bit on how it reports local names. Typically, when a machine asks DHCP server for an ip address, it passes its name which the server can record. Then it can tell other machines asking for that name.

(To do it that way, it makes sense to still have the machines configured to use DHCP, and fix the addresses on the DHCP server, rather than hard-coding each machine.)

nath81

In a large Windows network it would be normal to use AD integrated DNS. You could then configure your server to forward DNS queries it can't answer to your router/ISP. Ideally you also want your server to handle DHCP,

As has been said above, if a host is sending traffic destined for an address out side of it's local segment, it get's sent to the default gateway, and routed to another network. I suspect in your case the default gateway will be your router, and you will configure a DHCP option on your server to configure the clients. You can also use DHCP reservations to make sure your clients always get the same IP, you will need the MAC address of each client to set that up.

unforeseen

Simplest answer is to run DHCP server on your DC. That will provide all the info to the clients that they need

psychic_teabag

unforeseen wrote: »

Simplest answer is to run DHCP server on your DC. That will provide all the info to the clients that they need

But you would then need to disable DHCP on the router, since they'd compete for the client's attention. (client broadcasts a request, all dhcp servers can respond, and client chooses one).

JooFox

Nice one, thanks TeaBag.

You've answered a couple of things there that I've been unsure of for years!
Cheers.

JooFox

So I may as well turn off DHCP on the server then?

psychic_teabag

Can't really answer that in isolation - depends how you decide to do it. I think it makes sense to run DHCP and DNS server on the same machine, so that the DHCP can feed local client info to the DNS.

It might be easier to configure the services on windows than on your router, which is one consideration. You can either configure the server DNS to forward to the router DNS for external hosts. Or you can probably configure the DHCP server to give clients both DNS servers, so that they'd ask DC first, then router. There's lots of ways of doing things. (Latter might be easier to configure. Former has the advantage that the DNS can cache the external lookup answers for faster subsequent lookups. But your router DNS is probably cache-ing them anyway.)

bluesnake

servers normally have a fixed ip, the clients normally get their ip from the dhcp server, not router

The answer to your problem is one of two ways (1) change the routers dynamic address range so that its ip rage starts at 192.168.?.10 and give the server an ip below 10

(2) the proper way would be to put the server and clients on a different range, like 10.0.0.0, as above have a static range, but make the default gateway the router address