Best network solution for this setup...

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Gawd
Joined
Oct 27, 2000
Messages
942
I live in a cooperative student house. We have about 20 computers running from a Roadrunner Business class connection, I'm not sure of the actual numbers.

Anyway, any consumer-level router we try for DHCP, etc. always ends up having to be reset, and we also have to assign static IPs for some computers.

We have a cisco switch as well but I'm not sure about the actual model, etc.

should we try building a m0n0wall box or go with something else?
 
Leave the router to do its job, but offload the function of DHCP to something like a Linux box or Windows 200x Server box. Then disable the DHCP server on the linksys. And your linksys should perform better.
 
If the above doesnt aleviate your problems, it might help using a dedicated box for a router, as some times they can proform better. I will leave the choice of what OS to use up to you though. Also, you might setup the box for DHCP to also work as a DNS Caching server as well, since that might help lower the traffer for Hostname lookups.
 
I like the m0n0wall idea. I use one at my house and have intalled several for clients. They all work great. If you want a more "professional" solution, check out soekris.com for a embedded board that works great with m0n0wall.
 
Which router do you have? If it is a linksys you might want to look into some of the Linux Flashes that are floating around. There is no reason you should need to setup another box to support your pc's there.
 
Last year I lived in a house with 14 people, each with a computer. They all hooked up to a D-link 16 port switch in the basement which was then connected to a Cisco 800 ADSL router. We never had any problems with our internet for the entire year and you wouldn't know there was even another computer sharing the connection as each one could DL at 300-500 KB/s at the same time.
I'd recommend going with one of those as it's alot easier to setup, and probably the same if not cheaper cost then gettin an old junker to use.
 
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