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Hi,

The back story: We have a building with 6 separate companies all using
the same network to access the internet/print. All we have is an asdl
router/firewall connected to a hub and then patched in to various ports
around the office. We can have ~30 computers on the network at anyone
time so if we run out of ports I just uplink another hub...end of!

We are just about to by a nice and shiny new server for our network and
I heard (via a friend) about vlans and the possibility of splitting the
network in to smaller networks (1 for each comp) but still share
resources (internet/network printers). Please correct me if wrong.

So the question is what do I need to achieve this? I've looked in to
managed switched and 48 port ones are pretty damn expensive, do I need
this? or, could I essentially get a 12/24 port and uplink another
switch/hub/something without messing up the vlans?

Any help and advice on how to achieve this is greatly appreciated.

w33b

W33B wrote:

Hi,

The back story: We have a building with 6 separate companies all using
the same network to access the internet/print. All we have is an asdl
router/firewall connected to a hub and then patched in to various ports
around the office. We can have ~30 computers on the network at anyone
time so if we run out of ports I just uplink another hub...end of!

We are just about to by a nice and shiny new server for our network and
I heard (via a friend) about vlans and the possibility of splitting the
network in to smaller networks (1 for each comp) but still share
resources (internet/network printers). Please correct me if wrong.

So the question is what do I need to achieve this? I've looked in to
managed switched and 48 port ones are pretty damn expensive, do I need
this? or, could I essentially get a 12/24 port and uplink another
switch/hub/something without messing up the vlans?

Any help and advice on how to achieve this is greatly appreciated.

w33b

You might try a used 3com 3300 switch. These come in 12 and 24 ports,

are managed and programmable for vlans. They can be had pretty cheap on
Ebay ($100 or so). Make sure you get one with the default or known
passwords (needed to flash update or program). Some refurb companies
also sell these for pretty good prices.
Also, 3com has a neat free tool which maps your network and shows you
the current state of things. This talks to their equipment to tell you
very useful stuff (like traffic jams, etc).

3com Network Supervisor was discontinued, but is still available. The
basic pkg is free, and the download gives you a trial on the extras.
http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/deta ... u=3C15100D

gr

W33B wrote:

The back story: We have a building with 6 separate companies all using
the same network to access the internet/print. All we have is an asdl
router/firewall connected to a hub and then patched in to various ports
around the office. We can have ~30 computers on the network at anyone
time so if we run out of ports I just uplink another hub...end of!

We are just about to by a nice and shiny new server for our network and
I heard (via a friend) about vlans and the possibility of splitting the
network in to smaller networks (1 for each comp) but still share
resources (internet/network printers). Please correct me if wrong.

If the companies care about security, they would need to use VLANs
so that Company A's traffic doesn't end up at Company B's computer.
But then again, it looks like they are sharing resources like the
printer,
so maybe security is not that important.

So the question is what do I need to achieve this? I've looked in to
managed switched and 48 port ones are pretty damn expensive, do I need
this? or, could I essentially get a 12/24 port and uplink another
switch/hub/something without messing up the vlans?

If you want to have one VLAN per company, you would at least need
a number of ports equal to the number of companies plus one.
The last port would go to the router and would be a tagged port
that is on all VLANs. Then you would have one unmanaged switch/hub
per company whose uplink feeds into the appropriate port on the switch.

Using VLANs will entain configuring the hosts from all these companies
to be on different subnets so you will have to do some work on your
DHCP server for giving out addresses on the appropriate subnet
or renumber the customers' computers depending on whether or not they
are configured to use DHCP.

The server/printer would have to be on a separate subnet and you'd
have to route to them from each of these subnets. So you'd have
to have a separate port on the router that connects to the "shared
services" for all of the customers.

Anoop

W33B wrote:

Hi,

The back story: We have a building with 6 separate companies all using
the same network to access the internet/print. All we have is an asdl
router/firewall connected to a hub and then patched in to various ports
around the office. We can have ~30 computers on the network at anyone
time so if we run out of ports I just uplink another hub...end of!

We are just about to by a nice and shiny new server for our network and
I heard (via a friend) about vlans and the possibility of splitting the
network in to smaller networks (1 for each comp) but still share
resources (internet/network printers). Please correct me if wrong.

So the question is what do I need to achieve this? I've looked in to
managed switched and 48 port ones are pretty damn expensive, do I need
this? or, could I essentially get a 12/24 port and uplink another
switch/hub/something without messing up the vlans?

Any help and advice on how to achieve this is greatly appreciated.

w33b

1. Get a Nortel 425-24T switch. It is a managed Switch that can handle
VLANs and Tagging.

2. Create subnets on the Router for each company in the building.

Helper-address 66.1.1.1 255.255.0.0
Helper-address 66.1.1.2 255.255.0.0
(or whatever you need to do)

3. Create the VLANs on the switch and plug 1 Ethernet cable for each
company, into the switch, noting the port the cable is plugged into.

4. Tag the incoming port from the router

5. Tag each of the VLAN'd ports as well.

6. Each port will feed a different company.

They will on their own section of the pipe and never touch each other
yet share the same resorces. The online manual for the Nortel 425-24T
explains the Tagging/VLAN process well.

Good luck