Wiring a home for ethernet

[H. M. Murdock]

OK, listen to this,
I currently live in a fraternity house at school. I miss my high speed internet access from home and at the dorms. Now I went and talked to the school and they said they would provide us with high speed internet, as long as our house could support it. Basicall they will run the pipe over, but we have to accomodate for everything else. I am looking into the cost of having someone local run the wire, but I may end up doing it myself. I am the house manager and do know the basics of wiring, so that part wont be a big deal. Do the wiring my self will save a bunch of money for us, and I am probably going to stay there for the summer to take classes, it will give me a project to work on.

Now we have 19 rooms, plus a formal room, a library, and our chapter/party room. I plan on one connection per room (unless they get a hub themselves in the room), expcept for one room which is a quad, I will put in 2 jacks, 2 in both the library and the formal room for anyone who has a laptop, and 2 jacks in the basement for parties (mp3s and such) or for presentations to alumni, college officials, or whatever. So total that is 26 connections. I suppose I could elimate 2 so they would fit on a 24 port hub, but I would rather have a few extra, in case of expansion. I have heard you can not put more than 100 feet of ethernet without a repeater, but, I do not see that as a problem.

Now here is my question, provided all of the hardware is installed correctly, and I have all of the cables run to a central location. can I plug them all into a hub, plug the "wire" the university provides into the uplink, and we should be in business? As far as the dorms went, dhcp was all yu needed for an internet access, just plug in boot up, enable dhcp and you were in business. I would assume the same would be true for the connection they would give us (they were not very forcoming on this information, I do not think they believe that we will get this done). Now will simple hubs suffice? Will I need a router, or maybe setup a linux box to act as a gateway? I know you people may not be able to answer this without knowing exactly what the university will provide me, but maybe you can give some advice or some reading that will help me prepare for the wiring and such.

Thanks inadvance for any info provided,

Murdock

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by H. M. Murdock:
I have heard you can not put more than 100 feet of ethernet without a repeater, but, I do not see that as a problem.


it is 100 meters, so you are correct, in that size building, it won't be an issue

as for the rest, it really depends on what type of pipe they actually deliver to your facility

you need to know for sure "what" they are giving you to know for sure.

how far is you facility from the campus? are you "on campus"? if so, how far is it the nearest campus building that is on the univ. LAN?

you might well need something more than a hub, but you will need more info to be sure

have fun, wiring a residential building like that isn't as easy as retail spaces with drop ceilings, good luck! :)

[ 23 March 2001: Message edited by: Pie Weasel! ]

[H. M. Murdock]

we are not technically "on-compus", but there is a university building next store that is wired, and they did say they would run it over from there. they probably will release the details to us when we show a little proff of what we are doing.

Murdock

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by H. M. Murdock:
there is a university building next store that is wired, and they did say they would run it over from there

then it sounds like they will just run you a drop off one of their branches, which means you just plug the rj-45 they give you into the uplink port on your hub, just like you thought! :)

[compunuts]

If you are going to need to share the connection with all a bunch of people, go for the switch than the hub. If you need expension, you can do like this.

. Cable from School
. || go to uplink port
. --------------
. |2 port switch |
. --------------
. | |
. | |
. ------------ ------------
. | 16 port SW | | 16 port SW |
. ------------ ------------
. | | | | | | | |
. To Rooms To Rooms


Now you've got yourself 32 ports. :D

[ 23 March 2001: Message edited by: compunuts ]

[nathaniel]

depending apon that connection and hte # of ppl I would really recommend u get a switch instead of a hub, collisions will show, especialy 4 or more ppl on, and possibly a server or two. . .

NB

[nathaniel]

depending apon that connection and hte # of ppl I would really recommend u get a switch instead of a hub, collisions will show, especialy 4 or more ppl on, and possibly a server or two. . .

NB

[Beowulfs_Ghost]

My experience in dealing with school internet conections;

You'll also have to firuge out were your IP addresses are coming from. Not only will you be getting the physical cable from the building next door, but you are going to have to get IP's for all those machines. If they are willing to let you leach off their DHCP server, you're fine. If not, you're going to have to use NAT or whatever. Either way, it will get more complicated with this route.

[H. M. Murdock]

Originally posted by compunuts:
If you are going to need to share the connection with all a bunch of people, go for the switch than the hub. If you need expension, you can do like this.

. Cable from School
. || go to uplink port
. --------------
. |2 port switch |
. --------------
. | |
. | |
. ------------ ------------
. | 16 port SW | | 16 port SW |
. ------------ ------------
. | | | | | | | |
. To Rooms To Rooms


Now you've got yourself 32 ports. :D

[ 23 March 2001: Message edited by: compunuts ]

Thanks for the suggestions so far guys, but as far as the switches go, do I want managed, or unmanaged switches? I just went to pricewatch to look at the prices a bit, and I noticed the 2 different categories.

Murdock

[FoBoT]

that idea to put up a server is good

especially a proxy (squid) server
and if the campus uses static ips, putting up a dhcp server and doing NAT would make it easy for all the clients/dudez to just plug in their boxen and go

hey! now you made me want to come help! ;)

[H. M. Murdock]

if I had to, I could put a server up, but my main worry of that, is after I leave, noone will have any idea of what to do if the server crashes or something, it would be best if the only hardware was just cable, hubs or switches, ya know, stuff a moron can manage.

Murdock

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by H. M. Murdock:
but my main worry of that, is after I leave, noone will have any idea of what to do if the server crashes or something, it would be best if the only hardware was just cable, hubs or switches, ya know, stuff a moron can manage.


that brings up an interesting idea

why not put e-smith server (http://www.e-smith.org) onto an old box
it is a red hat based "moron proof" easy to use server distro that is preconfigured to run dhcp, squid, NAT etc and even includes web mail
then when you left, if it crashed, all they would have to do is reload from the bootable cd and "restoration" disk, almost moron proof

just an idea ;)

[Molecule Man]

Other options for an idiot-proof serverwould be Coyote Linux (http://www.coyotelinux.com) or something like the Cobalt Cube. The cube is pretty nice and last time I checked on them, they were about $700 and could also double as a file and print server, besides the NAT.