Subnets, DHCP, Network Design - help required

Hi all, need help on something and hoping that someone will have the answers for me.

Objective:
Create one physical LAN and logically split it into 3 or more for future growth.

I am currently trying to re-design a network for a school. What I would like to do is use 172.20.0.0 and subnet this into 8 subnets.
1. Admin (teachers and staff): 172.20.0.1 - 172.20.31.254
2. Curriculum (students): 172.20.32.1 - 172.20.63.254
3. Wireless: 172.20.64.1 - 172.20.95.254
And the rest for future growth. Each subnet should allow me 8190 devices on each.

These subnets would obviously come back to a Main Distribution Point and connect to a router with multiple LAN ports for each subnet before being routed to the servers and the internet.

Questions:
1. Can 1 DHCP server hand out addresses for all subnets (Superscope maybe?)
2. How can the network be setup so that the IP address handed out is dependant on the user logging in?

EG. If a tutor logs in, then it will hand out an IP in the Admin subnet. But if student then came along and logged onto that same pc, he/she would get an IP from the Curriculum subnet.

3. Is there another way that this can be done?
4. Can this be done with VLAN? Reason for this thought is, if the pc is already switched on, it has already been assigned an IP address before the tutor or student logs in.

Any links, thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated.
:

DHCP can handle the scopes. You can use a subnet mask of 255.255.240.0 .

1. You cannot assign a different IP to a student and a tutor logging into the same PC.

2. If the computers are in different departments and you have different switches there you can use VLANs which would make the task much simpler.

Thanks for the reply. Does anyone else have any other ideas on how this can be done?

The key here seems to be your Point 4 - by the time anyone logs in, your PC has already been given its IP address by DHCP and your VLAN must already be connected (otherwise how do you connect to log in?)
If you want to restrict/provide access to various things depending on the status of the user who logs in, then it sounds like you want to use your OS to do it. Think in terms of group membership that determines what the user gets/can use on their desktop coupled with the appropriate share, directory and file access permissions

Hey Guys,

i read the replies, i just wanted to know why he should use a subnet mask of 255.255.240.0? I never mastered subnetting.

Lindows

Hey Guys,

i read the replies, i just wanted to know why he should use a subnet mask of 255.255.240.0? I never mastered subnetting.

Lindows

Read the tutorials in the this site www.firewall.cx . Your questions on the subnetting issue will be answered for sure. I myself like to obtain staight answers, but learning by reading does not hurt.