pc technician who's boss won't explain things to him ..

Aye, I'll get a diagram up sometime tomorrow .. I went out and hooked up some sites today to check it out .. hooked up 9 computers this morning .. all worked

how much of an effect does the server itself have on bandwidth and data transfer?? Since all data is transferred through the 2 NIC cards, I'm assuming the servers processor speed and RAM would play a significant role ??? I ask, because while at some of the sites, I would ping the provider's router and I would get a few timeouts. I'm sure some of it can be attributed to running a wireless network and the fact that none of the sites have line of sight to the tower .. plus the fact that my old boss was semi retarded for running CAT 5 cable 140ft from the base of the tower to the Access Point.

I'll start on firewalls tomorrow probably .. gonna take the rest of today off and relax .. was up alot of hours the past few days learn'n the basics of this. I have a LONG, LONG way to go to be sure .. but, it feels nice to have got this far. Granted, I couldn't have done it without ya'lls help to which i'm VERY thankful ..

as for the half a trillion .. would you like that in 1s or 20s? :lol:

Oh Excellento !!!!!!

Urhmm.... TFS, would you mind sharing the Half a Trillion? A few millions will be fine for me, and I really don't care if they are in 1's or 20's .... I'm not that fussy

So, how many volumes can we make out of Raggedy's thread? :lol:

Well chaps .. I gota let you know, tomorrow is the big day... I have a 10am interview with Greece's largest aluminium manual factoring company for a Network Engineer's position that's available.... wish me luck!!!!

Maybe I should print out the site and present it to them ... you recon it will impress them ?

Firstly,.. WOW ... 67 posts, thats insane.
Second, Chris, good luck on the interview, just show them the fancy flash animation of website hits with a couple of the alexa reviews hehe. I'm so sick of thinking about networks today. I figured I'd unwind with the new book I picked up 'Stealing The Network - How To Own The Box'. If you haven't heard bout it yet.. pick it up, theres a reason its so controversial...

It was a really good book.. but it put me in that frame of mind where I started doing random things like sniffing nmap scans and trying to write my own snort signatures lol . Anyway.. end result --I'm more fried than a chinese noodle.

Btw raggedy -- hope you get the admin job, I didn't follow this post cause it was in toms very able hands, but it looks like you put in a lot of work good stuff !

Tom - this is your way of getting up in the post war.. 10 bucks says raggedy and he post from the same ip j/k

Oh darn,

I think 2 or 3 volumes ought to do it.

Sahirh, you figured me out. I knew I couldn't fool you. Let us know about the book. Sounds interesting.

Chris, I think I can spare a few million. Good luck on the interview. I would definately take some screen shots of the site, even if you don't use it. You never know what will come up in the interview.

When do you finish your A+?


Raggady,

You are correct on your questions about the Server acting as a router. Remember, the NIC cards are not doing the work. They only look at the Packets, it is the protocols and router software ( in this case the Windows OS), that does all the work. So faster and more memory (and not running a Web Server on the same server), would be help.

As far as Cat 5. You keep mentioning the distance in feet. 140 feet is no problem. 140 meters would be. Max distance for Cat5 is 100 meters, which includes all patch cables and runs through the walls and up the walls. Now I don't know anything about your Access Point on your building, but if you are pulling a whole ton of data through one Cat5 cable, that could be a problem as far as throughput. But based on the amount of workstations and servers you mentiond 65 - 500, you may or may not have problem with that amount of data through the Access Point, depending on the amount of data sent at any particular time. Could be a problem if 20 people start downloading 100 MB files at the same time, for instance.

I have hooked up over 20 test workstations the past few days (ranging from a few hundred feet, up to 3 miles away). All are working. Throughput on the other hand is dismal and fluctuates greatly ..

In a 10 minute timeframe, I can go from 1.5mb to 100k when running a check at bandwidth.com at a test computer. I'll see about swapping out the servers duties. I'll put the web site information on the mail server computer and let this computer act as a standalone for routing internet traffic .. see if that doesn't help some .. now granted, though its acting as a web server as well, we do not see hardly any traffic to our current test sites, so, should that still matter?

i'm lost on the wireless internet, ie: what affects the range? what interferes with the signal? anything i can do to eliminate "noise" (interferance)

as for the CAT5 cable .. I could have sworn I read that packet loss increases exponentially as the distance traveled increases once beyond the 120 ft mark .. and that to be safe, one should only run CAT5 100ft (i need to read up on attenuation again) .. either way, something is causing major problems with the throughput .. i've never seen it fluctuate so greatly ..

Also, I'll see about getting a diagram drawn up explaining the steps/configurations. I probably won't have time to do that until next this weekend. I just found out the other day, I have to put together a website for the company (go Frontpage!)

anyways, sorry i've been away so long .. to many things to do, not enough time to do them in!! hope to check back in soon .. and, i typed up that review .. shoulda mentioned something about a Pulitzer Prize now that I think about it!

And Chris, I hope the interview went well!

Glad to hear that it is working - to some degree.

Again, you are talking in feet. You shouldn't have problem problem with your cable - as long as the cable itself is OK - until after 100 meters (not 100 feet), that's 328 feet.

Not sure what is causing your slowdown. Could be lots of things. If I remember correctly, your data is coming in from 2 places - your ISP and over the Access Point. Also, you are using an NT for a router. It would help to see the diagram.

Also, what type of wireless are you using. You mentioned it being on the building before, I believe.

Thanks.