Quick question (I hope). I am trying to set up a server at home (for learning/research) behind a Linksys Router, which is behind a static broadband connection. The server manages my network printers and 5 computers (2 wireless laptops, 2 desktops, and a Macintosh). I wish to eventually make it a web server, but I'm still hashing out the details with my ISP. Right now it just needs to be a printserver, dole out IPs (to keep everybody in the loop), and be a fileserver (which I can connect to from elsewhere).

My question deals with network setup. I'm somewhat (read: not an expert) versed in DNS, DHCP, port forwarding, and the like. I have a test environment running well at the moment, but have not hooked it up to the internet.

Setting aside all of the other devices (workstations, printers, etc.), how do I install the server behind the NAT router ~and~ configure same said router to be an access point?

I have the server and router set on a static (internal) IP, DHCP enabled on the server (which works marvelously), and am confident that I can get wired clients up and running. The problem is that I cannot lose wireless clients.

Will the router forward DHCP request packets to the server automatically? Or is it that I should just let go of some more cash to get an access point and disable wireless on the router altogether?

Feel free to contact if all of this above is just too confusing...I am by no means an elegant author.

The router should be able to manage your DHCP without having to purchase an access point just make sure that your Server IP is in the same subnet. This should be an easy setup if you use the web interface.

Let me try to get this straight:

Let the router handle DHCP; no problem.

How (since the router has no DHCP reservations) do I force the server to stay on a static IP (so everything else falls into place)?

OK, it seems I was wrong about the last post. It seems that my router ~does~ handle DHCP reservations (buried somewhere in advanced settings).

I probably should have looked in the first place. I just ass-u-med that it did not.

Thanks to tsandlin for the quick reply.

I am a little confused with your post. You want your server to have a static IP address. You can accomplish this one of two ways. You can assign it manually via the NIC's TCP/IP properties, or you can add a DHCP reservation into your router's DHCP settings.

I would recommend assigning the IP address manually. DHCP is more likely to fail than assigning a NIC a static address.

How (since the router has no DHCP reservations) do I force the server to stay on a static IP (so everything else falls into place)?

You last post said you found the reservations tab so you can use that. An alternative is to create your DHCP scope of say 192.168.0.100 to 192.168.0.200 and leave addresses 1 - 99 and 201 - 254 available for static assignments such as your server and network printers.

I wouldn't even waste time with exclusions or reservations in DHCP. Setup the way I describe above, you give your Server the following IP 192.168.0.1 (static assignment) and everything will work.

Will the router forward DHCP request packets to the server automatically?

No, it won't. It doesn't have to. The DHCP server "listens" on the network for DHCP requests from clients and when it recieves one, assigns an IP to the requesting client. Your router in this case does nothing. Regardless of whether the requesting client is hardwired or connecting to the network via wireless, it should still all work properly once configured correctly.

Let me toss in my 2 cents worth...

The guys above are correct, set your server NIC to a static IP of whatever you want...your Linksys will DEFAULT it's own internal IP to 192.168.0.1...you can change it if you like...I like to set my routers at the to of the IP range, 192.168.0.254, then I like my servers at the bottom of the range...192.168.0.1...for example...

The Linksys will also DEFAULT set the DHCP to "on" and the range will be from 192.168.0.100 to, I think it stops at .250...

So, anything below 192.168.0.99 is essentially "static IP range"...you can use the range of 192.168.0.1 thru .99 for any device you want to establish a static IP for...

For example, I set my servers from 192.168.0.1 to .10...my WAPS or any wireless devices from 192.168.0.11 to .20...
Then I set my printers from 192.168.0.21 to .30 and so on...then at .100 I start my DHCP for all my workstations...

Now, set the server NIC for a static IP of 192.168.0.1 in my example...you set the Gateway at 192.168.0.254, the IP address of the router...

When you are setting DNS in the server, you point the DNS to itself so the server becomes the DNS server also...so, the DNS becomes 192.168.0.1...

Any static device you set up should have as its GW the IP of the server...this makes the server your DNS server...

You say you have a static broadband...so here you are assigned a static IP to the WAN side of the router, there will also be a GW address for the IP side of the router...and depending how your ISP does things, there should be 2-3 DNS servers for the WAN side of the router...

In my case, I also have 2003SBS at home for learning and breaking...:)...
I have a static DSL line from SBC...they provide 7 IP address, one is the "wire", one is the GW and that leaves me with 5 static IP's I can use however I want...FTP, IIS etc...SBC provided me with a 2Wire router...

I also have a Linskys, RV042 which is an SPI router...and I wanted to use it for my LAN router...

So I took one static IP, ran it thru the 2Wire router into my Linksys...essentially the same thing you are doing right now...and my Linksys provides DHCP to my workstations...

My server NIC is set so my preferred DNS server is the 2003SBS server, or an IP of 192.168.0.1 and my secondary DNS server is 192.168.0.254, which is the IP of my Linksys...

Hope this helps...
Good luck
Steve

I should have noted...it is a good idea to diagram your network with all the IP's on your diagriam...it helps to visualize what you are doing and not "loose tract" of what's going on...

Not only is the server 2003 an excellent platform it also has some wonderful tech support. Almost every word line for line in the 70-29X series books for cert is online at the Technet site. To be even more helpful MS offers all sorts of video on demand and tutorials.

I'd suggest that you spend the $140 for the whole series of 2003 server. They have everything you'd want to know. They come with the ebooks and practice exams and a few other ebooks and a copy of 2003 too.

im a novice in all this , but have a wag 54 gs and have 5 pc's , one of them is a web server which needs to have a static route ( ip reservation etc ) , and to the advice above i have set up my server tcp settings as 192.168.1.99 ( below then dhcp range on the wag 54gs) and in the dns i have entered the dns server settings which i copied from the setting previously ( or can be found within the router setup screen ) and voila ' , i have a static route set on a dhcp network ! - just a big thank you , ash ( newbie )