The Illustrated Network

Background

This Mini-How-I-Did-It was created as an example of one way to network multiple desktop Personal Computers (PC), laptop computers and Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) together using a variety of off the shelf technologies available to the small office and home office (SOHO) user. This page is a work in progress and may be added-to or updated as time allows.

Overview

The computer portion of the system consists of two Windows XP Professional Edition (XP Pro) desktop PC's and a Windows XP Professional Edition (XP Pro) Compaq Armada E500 laptop. Network hardware consists of a Buffalo Technology WBR-G54 4-Port Broadband Router/Wireless Access Point and various patch panel, punch down block, wall plate and wiring components.

The Network Diagram

Network Addressing Scheme

The addressing convention used is simple. Fixed network nodes are assigned static IP addresses. Wired guest nodes or wireless devices are assigned dynamic IP addresses. The Buffalo Technology WBR-G54 4-Port Broadband Router/Wireless Access Point DHCP server handles all dynamic addressing on the network.

Security note: The MVPs.org site has a free and maintained hosts file available for download. Use the MVPs.org hosts file to block ads, banners, cookies, web bugs, and even most hijackers. If the MVPs.org hosts file is used on a local network, the file can easily be edited to include the local PCs. The common hosts file maps local network IP addresses to names and is resident on all local PCs. Another source of a free and maintained hosts file is hpHOSTS file from the HPGuru's web site.

# This MVPS HOSTS file is a free download from: #
# http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/ #
# #
# Notes: the browser does not read this "#" symbol #
# You can create your own notes, after the # symbol #
# This *must* be the first line: 127.0.0.1 localhost #
# ****************************************************** #
# ------------------Updated: 05-02-04------------------* #
# ****************************************************** #
# Entries marked with Parasite or Trojan comments should #
# be placed in the Internet Explorer Restricted Zone. #
# http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/restricted.htm #
# #
# Entries with other comments are searchable via Google. #
# #
# Disclaimer: this file is free to use, however it is NOT #
# permitted to post on any other site without permission. #

127.0.0.1 localhost

# Allowed hosts

10.8.0.1		Buffalo	# Buffalo WBR-G54 router/wireless access point

10.8.0.11		Ashtabula	# Al's desktop
10.8.0.12		Norman	# Linda's desktop

# [Misc Add-ons][A - Z]
127.0.0.1 abcsearch.com
127.0.0.1 admin.abcsearch.com
127.0.0.1 www3.abcsearch.com #[Browseraid]

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Last Reviewed: 23 July 2008...awj Copyright © 2008 - Alan W. Jarvi - All rights reserved The Microsoft MVP Program