Personal experience: Organization of a home network in an apartment
Probably, many of those present here have already passed this stage in their lives. I will share what I myself faced. I hope someone will find this information useful ...;)
At one time for comfortable work, in addition to my home PC, I purchased a laptop (2 years ago). Choosing a specific laptop model is a separate long story.
This purchase gave me the opportunity to always keep work materials on hand and, if necessary, work at home. Plus, thanks to mobility, I could now be with a computer anywhere in the apartment - wherever it is convenient for me.
The Internet at that time in our city just began to more or less develop, good tariffs appeared, and the internal network of the city (between the subscribers of providers) began to grow rapidly. Connecting to the Internet at my place was carried out through a network cable extended to the home PC, which, in turn, was connected to the ADSL line of the provider.
After some time, there was a desire for even more comfort, since binding a laptop to a PC with a cable nullified its mobility.
It was decided to purchase an ADSL router with Wi-Fi support. The choice settled on the Asus WL-600G .
Unfortunately, my then provider could only connect to the Internet using a VPN connection through PPTP. This router does not support this feature, and I had to use my home PC as a proxy server. But still, as a result, I got exactly what I needed then - mobility. Finally, I could be anywhere in the apartment and at the same time be in touch with the global network. Long live the technology! :)
A year later, I finally managed to switch from an ADSL line to an Ethernet line. There was a real dedicated network with 100-megabit access to the provider’s intranet resources. Compared to ADSL, it was something! By this time, unlimited tariffs have already begun to appear in our city. Due to the switch to Ethernet, the main function of the WL-600g, as an ADSL router, has lost its relevance. It began to be used as a regular Wi-Fi router (and I put it up for a leisurely sale).
After another six months, a new laptop appears in the apartment - my wife's laptop. An internal apartment network has already begun to form from a home PC running Windows XP and two laptops running Windows XP and Windows Vista.
At this point, I began to think about converting my home PC to Linux, since there were no problems with laptops - licensed versions of operating systems are used that completely suit us. I confess, at that moment there was a pirated version of the OS on the server.
The time has come to choose from versions of various Linux distributions. And I didn’t even think about their diversity before. After reading many forums and topics, I chose the Ubuntu 8.10 distribution kit . Due to the fact that my provider at that time was on a local network with Yandex , I was able to download the latest DVD distribution of the system from a wonderful mirror of Linux distributions and install it on my home PC. Now for me it has turned into a full-fledged server.
How much torment was the beginner with raising PPTP, installing squid and samba . The tips of the users of our provider’s forum that have already switched to Linux have helped a lot, but I can’t but mention wonderful resources:
Just a few months ago, I noticed that a fairly large state provider in Russia, finally began to turn to face the users, instead of what it had been turned before. Sane tariffs appeared for affordable money.
It just came in handy that I never sold my router - my new provider provides services through ADSL. At the same time, I get unlimited speeds of up to 2 Mbit / s and are only 100 rubles more expensive than my previous unlimited 256 Kb / s from the previous provider.
At the moment, I have the following interaction scheme in my apartment:
Of course, encryption is configured for Wi-Fi, NAT is configured on the server (it also took a lot of time to find a solution), and routing is configured on the router for free access of laptops to the network of the previous provider. Additionally, on the server, I configured routing so that it also had the ability to access the Internet.
As a result, at the moment I have unlimited Internet at speeds up to 2 Mbps with the ability to exit from any corner of the apartment, plus the ability to exchange files inside the network of the previous provider at speeds up to 100 Mbps.
Yes, I got what I wanted. And a lot of merit in this - Ubuntu, since what I managed to implement completely free of charge would require a lot of investment if I implemented it under Windows (taking into account the installation of additional necessary programs and the requirements of “licensing”).
P.S. After installing Ubuntu, I began to sharper understand the thesis “Configured? Works? Do not go! ” :)
Start
At one time for comfortable work, in addition to my home PC, I purchased a laptop (2 years ago). Choosing a specific laptop model is a separate long story.
This purchase gave me the opportunity to always keep work materials on hand and, if necessary, work at home. Plus, thanks to mobility, I could now be with a computer anywhere in the apartment - wherever it is convenient for me.
The Internet at that time in our city just began to more or less develop, good tariffs appeared, and the internal network of the city (between the subscribers of providers) began to grow rapidly. Connecting to the Internet at my place was carried out through a network cable extended to the home PC, which, in turn, was connected to the ADSL line of the provider.
Wifi
After some time, there was a desire for even more comfort, since binding a laptop to a PC with a cable nullified its mobility.
It was decided to purchase an ADSL router with Wi-Fi support. The choice settled on the Asus WL-600G .
Unfortunately, my then provider could only connect to the Internet using a VPN connection through PPTP. This router does not support this feature, and I had to use my home PC as a proxy server. But still, as a result, I got exactly what I needed then - mobility. Finally, I could be anywhere in the apartment and at the same time be in touch with the global network. Long live the technology! :)
Network appearance
A year later, I finally managed to switch from an ADSL line to an Ethernet line. There was a real dedicated network with 100-megabit access to the provider’s intranet resources. Compared to ADSL, it was something! By this time, unlimited tariffs have already begun to appear in our city. Due to the switch to Ethernet, the main function of the WL-600g, as an ADSL router, has lost its relevance. It began to be used as a regular Wi-Fi router (and I put it up for a leisurely sale).
After another six months, a new laptop appears in the apartment - my wife's laptop. An internal apartment network has already begun to form from a home PC running Windows XP and two laptops running Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Switching to Linux
At this point, I began to think about converting my home PC to Linux, since there were no problems with laptops - licensed versions of operating systems are used that completely suit us. I confess, at that moment there was a pirated version of the OS on the server.
The time has come to choose from versions of various Linux distributions. And I didn’t even think about their diversity before. After reading many forums and topics, I chose the Ubuntu 8.10 distribution kit . Due to the fact that my provider at that time was on a local network with Yandex , I was able to download the latest DVD distribution of the system from a wonderful mirror of Linux distributions and install it on my home PC. Now for me it has turned into a full-fledged server.
How much torment was the beginner with raising PPTP, installing squid and samba . The tips of the users of our provider’s forum that have already switched to Linux have helped a lot, but I can’t but mention wonderful resources:
New - well forgotten old
Just a few months ago, I noticed that a fairly large state provider in Russia, finally began to turn to face the users, instead of what it had been turned before. Sane tariffs appeared for affordable money.
It just came in handy that I never sold my router - my new provider provides services through ADSL. At the same time, I get unlimited speeds of up to 2 Mbit / s and are only 100 rubles more expensive than my previous unlimited 256 Kb / s from the previous provider.
Result
At the moment, I have the following interaction scheme in my apartment:
- a home server for which I no longer worry about licensing thanks to Ubuntu 8.10 ;
- the server is connected to the Ethernet network of the previous provider through a network card (left due to a developed internal network, access to which costs 150 rubles / month) - I download and exchange files mainly there;
- the server is connected to the router via Ethernet;
- the router is connected to the new provider through ADSL with automatic raising of the PPoE connection (finally it turned out to automate the process of connecting to the Internet);
- laptops are connected via Wi-Fi to a router (DHCP) and are on the same network with the server and with each other;
- laptops easily access the Internet through a router and into the internal network of a previous provider through a home server.
Of course, encryption is configured for Wi-Fi, NAT is configured on the server (it also took a lot of time to find a solution), and routing is configured on the router for free access of laptops to the network of the previous provider. Additionally, on the server, I configured routing so that it also had the ability to access the Internet.
As a result, at the moment I have unlimited Internet at speeds up to 2 Mbps with the ability to exit from any corner of the apartment, plus the ability to exchange files inside the network of the previous provider at speeds up to 100 Mbps.
Yes, I got what I wanted. And a lot of merit in this - Ubuntu, since what I managed to implement completely free of charge would require a lot of investment if I implemented it under Windows (taking into account the installation of additional necessary programs and the requirements of “licensing”).
P.S. After installing Ubuntu, I began to sharper understand the thesis “Configured? Works? Do not go! ” :)