CCNA network related question

I just setup a small network for a friend of mine (4 PCs) in his apt.
In the front room there are two computers wired to the router. In the
backroom about 100 feet away there are two computers in separate rooms.
I was thinking of running an ethernet cable from the router under a rug all the way
to the backroom. This in itself will be costly and a pain since he just had his carpet installed.
Also ther's no redundancy. What happens if the cable goes bad?
Another option would be to have a second modem installed in one of the back rooms
since each room already has a outlet for cable connection and then call his ISP
and have them setup a second line. I would then setup a wireless router
for the two computers in the back room.
At first my idea was to have all 4 computers connect wireless
but because of interference and other issues decided to go wire with both
computers in the front room and wireless connection for the back rooms.
My goal is to have all 4 computers share network resources and connect to
the internet. He also has a Buffalo linkstate external Hard drive which I would like
all 4 computers to be able to access.
What do you think any other ideas, suggestions? Which of the two options sound better?

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Comments

Netstudent

I would put a Wireless router where the internet connection comes in. Then use wireless connectivity throughout the house. Wiring the front and wireless to the back is a fine idea. What interference are you worrying about? As long has you don't have mulitple WAP's contending for the same channel, you should be good.

Then I would set everyone up on a workgroup with file and print sharing. Get netbios over TCP going. I would seriously lock down the wireless and then share either the harddrives or just some folders on the workgroup. The sharing depends on how much functionality you want. If you share out a root drive, make dang sure your wireless and wired LAN is locked down. If you were feeling froggy, you could set up a little domain on a server. But thats more work than it's worth i think.

Then you could put the external harddrive on one of the machines and share it out.

Thats kinda where I would start, and then tweak it with users and permissions and services ect....

jediknight

Here's my opinion:

First, no need to order a Second Line. Just use a router and share the internet connection.

If you wanted to run ethernet cable from the back room to the router that's not a bad idea and not to mention ethernet cables rarely go bad... unless you step on them and are bending them this is not a big concern.

Unless network bandwidth was a big issue for you, I would as Netstudent mentioned go wireless. It's easy to setup, and if a card does fail it will be easy to replace. You can secure it by using MAC Filtering, Disabling SSID Broadcasting, and using WPA2-Personal which is extremely secure and easy to setup.

You can hookup the external hard drive to one of the systems and share it out. After that all that's left would be to configure the NTFS Permissions for the folders you are sharing.

Also, how is this a CCNA question, you are not even using Cisco Hardware?...j/k

kadshah

What interference are you worrying about?

I have interference and have no idea where it's coming from. The signal just drops half way down the corridor. It's like an invisible brick wall (I found this out just by walking around the house with my laptop) I brought a access-point but that didn't help. I have exhausted every solution I can think of to get a wireless connection to work from the back room to the front room. I spent 4 hrs on the phone with a Netgear support technician. We tried everything, different channels different speed etc so I finally gave up and decided to wire the front and setup a wireless in the back 2 rooms. Now the problem is sharing. Since I will be using two lines the 2 wireless computers in the back rooms need to access the external HD that is connected to the 2 wired computers in the front room. I was thinking maybe setting up a remote connection. Is this a good solution?

You can secure it by using MAC Filtering

Yes I forgot about that will do

12beatechie

kadshah wrote:

What interference are you worrying about?
I have interference and have no idea where it's coming from. The signal just drops half way down the corridor. It's like an invisible brick wall (I found this out just by walking around the house with my laptop) I brought a access-point but that didn't help. I have exhausted every solution I can think of to get a wireless connection to work from the back room to the front room.

Did you try using a WIFI Signal Booster?

kadshah

I used the Netgear RangeMax NEXT wireless-N router along with the netgear Rangemax next wireless access point (which is a signal booster)and RangeMAx 240 wireless usb 2.0 adapters to extend his network.

kadshah

nothing important to say i just wanted to hit 200 post