WinServ 2003 - first steps - IP addressing

[guitonoklops9]

Hello friends,

Recently, my office purchased a server from Dell with WinServ 2003 and tasked me with setting it up. Although I've never set one up before, I'm a fairly quick study and can figure things out (with a little guidance from the experts, of course!)

This server is to serve a handful of functions eventually and I've decided to implement each separately. First and foremost I'd like to get it online as a basic File Server for the four client computers in the office. I set up some user directories and shared them with everyone as a start. This is where I ran into problems.

It turns out that the connection to the file server became intermittent from the client computers. They would click on the shared folder or drive on their machine but would not be able to access their files. I think that this is because of ip address issues somewhere in our network. We have a simple network setup and I want to figure out how to set it up correctly. Right now our setup consists of:

A Dell PowerEdge Server (Dual processors, 4gb ram, 1tb hd space etc.) with WinServ 2003 Standard Edition
4 Client computers running XP Pro
an 8 port Dell switch
a Westell 6100 DSL Modem from Verizon

My question is, what is the best way to setup the network addressing system? I think that the modem is set to assign ip addresses to everything on the network now and it is creating some sort of conflict with the server.

Honestly, I am a in a bit over my head on this one. I haven't been able to find the answers I need partly because I don't know the correct questions to ask. I'd appreciate any help answering this question or guidance as to where I could look to educate myself in regards to this issue. Also, I am not sure if this is the correct place to ask this question, if anyone knows of a forum dedicated to these types of server related issues I'd really like to know about it.

Thanks for your time and help!

Luke

 

[lyleb]

To simplify things assign a a static IP address to the server.

Later a static address may be needed for additional server functions and port forwarding from the modem.
Assign an address in the range the modem/router is using.

You only need to change the last group of numbers. Example - 192.168.1.xxx

If you wish to use DHCP assigned addresses on the other computers do the the following:
Change the settings in the modem/router so that the range of addresses assigned for DHCP addresses
does not interfere with the static addresses assigned. example 192.168.1.31 - 192.168.1.49

You should be able to find a users manual or instructions from your ISP for the modem/router.

Examples:

Modem 192.168.1.1
Server 192.168.1.75
Static address range 192.168.1.80 - 192.168.1.99
DHCP range 192.168.1.31 - 192.168.1.49

Keep a list for future reference.

 

[guitonoklops9]

Thanks for your answer. OK...I can do all of this stuff on Monday.

So is the best way is to allow the modem to assign the dynamic and static ip addresses to each node on the network?

I would have set it up this way originally (or similar) but for some reason I thought that the server takes care of IP addressing and supercedes the modem from verizon (it is kind of a cheesy modem).

 

[lyleb]

You should have only one DHCP server assigning addresses on the network.
Router or Server, whichever is best for you.

 

[guitonoklops9]

UPDATE: apparently my addressing and connectivity issues had nothing to do with the DHCP server as I suspected.

It turns out that there was a program called Yosemite File Keeper installed on the server. This was a Dell server, I'm not sure if it came pre-installed or was enabled by mistake. This program is a real time backup solution....every time a file on the server is changed, this program attempts to backup it up immediately. Yosemite was then locking files for backup as users tried to access them in real time. the user would get a "network path unavailable error".

Removing this program was extremely difficult. The un-installer didn't work and the program was hanging and creating all sorts of problems. A tech from Yosemite provided some help and troubleshooted the uninstall process as the command line syntax officially was provided incorrect.

Provided here for reference and anyone else who is interested.