Do Yourself a Favor, Become a Network Guru

[DVDR_Dog]

I am currently in a situation where It's my job to admin a network of >256 members. Granted I inherited this mess trying to untangle is impossible. At this point it's so fargone nothing short of a complete teardown and rebuild will fix it.
A terrible network sin was commited. When they needed to add a printer, another user, etc. They would send someone to Circuit City and pick up a 5 port SOHO switch and "expand" the network, (I am trying to figure out the Einstein who thought it was a good idea). Now there are tens of them scattered and hidden about the manufacturing floor and offices.
Now if you think that's OK I can tell you simply it's not as easy as an electrical circuit that you can just daisy chain another extesion cord to make more outlets. That seems to be the logic that was used here. One of those 5port beauties failed yesterday and it was incredibly hard to find, it was tucked away in dark corner ans causing some bizzare problems.
So here's my point: Take some time to actually learn about TCP/IP. My goodnness that's one of our major tools on here, master it. There are plenty of free resources to teach you and courses and reference material posted for downloading. Pretty soon our whole world will revolve around Internet transactions. Master them and you will be invaluable.

I am just starting this thread. Please feel free to ask questions or add as you see fit.
I was fortunate to have had a job where all we did was architech complex and secure systems for all kinds of industries. I learned a great deal over those years from some Cisco advanced educated engineers. It's definately worth some time learning all about it.

 

[Diguelo]

In a word Mr Dog. NIRSOFT

Network Monitoring and Inventory Tools Package

Network Inventory and Monitoring Software Package of NirSoft Web site

www.nirsoft.net

This little buch of networking tools to help your sourcing of the network access points. Where I work, we have machinery and PC's s[read out over 40 Acres of floor space and four floors.

Easiest way to work out what is what and where it is, use a laptop or tablet to carry with you. Laptop would be better and a 5m Network Cable. As you find the location of each switch add it to your list of locations and find out what its internal IP address is set to. If its been done properly the first distribution switch should be somewhere close to the actual Internet Router, most of these are 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1 etc. If im doing a network out from the start, i will leave the prime connection as it is. If you want to just make an off internet Grid up and have it hosted from a single PC/switch unit then set that machines internal IP to 192.168.0.0

192.168 this is the internal network.
0 this is the first location address
0 this is the number for the particular piece of equipment in that location.

So say you want a typing pool setup, a master POOL PC will be addressed 192.168, 255. 255, then as each typing pool pc is added they would have
192.168.255.0 through to 192.168.255.255 with each pc computer having a fixed IP address with system permissions being handled on PC 192.168.255.255 this then gives you a set of addresses for 256 individual network connections.

SO working the list out is fairly simple using a spread sheet

192.168. is a standard format in each switch location and PC location. Routing switches use the lower end 1 upwards and actual active computer connections and machinery 255 working downwards. Use the end 0 connection for master computer for each network branch.

1Simple network
192.168.0.1 internet outside router >> connects to 192.168.0.2 switch
192.168.0.3 pc is used to direct switch control and routing for 192.168.0.2.

192.168.1.0 Switch in the typing pool Connects to 192.168.0.2 (if internet is needed) and so on

192.168.0.3 Switch in Accounts
192.168.1.0 Accounts network control computer.
192.168.1.255 > down for each attached computer / sub switch.

192.168.0.4 Switch in R&D

and so on and so forth. Netorking can be done firstly using a Network Sniffer to find out what is attached to a particular network entry point.

Each main branch must have a direct control computer attached to the switch and internet to allow for updates and internal monitoring of data and storage.

Nirsoft tools are super simple and work great. If they havent got what you need, send them an email and withing a week or so they will have. Ive been using the Nirsoft tools since I first discovered them back in 2000 ish.