Getting Started, Need Advice

Support
1

Hi to fellow Nethservers

I will be using Nethserver for the first time, I’ll use this as a replacement for our Multi-WAN (main) router. Here is our setup:
a. Three (3) Internet provider
b. Two (2) Local Network, each has more or less 10 PCs
c. Three (3) WiFi access point

Questions:

  1. Specs of CPU. Is this sufficient?

    • INTEL CELERON G1840 DUAL CORE (2.80GHZ) PROCESSOR
    • Compatible motherboard
    • 4GB RAM
    • 1TB Hard disk (x2)

  2. What will be the settings so that the two network will see each other (for printer and file sharing)

  3. Bandwidth load balancing settings.

I’ll read your advice together with documentation to fully understand this system.

Thanks

2

Welcome @armanperalta
At first glance I think your hardware should be sufficient.
Can you tell me what version of NethServer you plan to use? 6.8 or the new 7b2? Version 7b2 is beta, but has a LOT of great new features. You might want to have a look at those. See http://www.nethserver.org/nethserver-7-beta1-mayo-released/ for details. And http://www.nethserver.org/nethserver-7-beta2-bruschetta-released/ for the latest changes.
But in order to give a complete advice we need more information about your network design.

  • how many physical interfaces does your setup have?
  • how do you plan your subnets for external connections? (3 internet connections)
  • how do you plan your subnets for internal connections? (2 local networks)
  • where in your networks are your wifi access points?

If you need your internal networks to use each others services (file sharing and printers), why do they have to be in separate subnets?

3 Likes
3

Thanks rob

  1. I’m about to use the stable version 6.8. Do you recommend 7b2 version? Is it easy to upgrade once the stable version comes out?

  2. I’ll use 3 or 4 interface.

  3. I will not use the subnets of our Internet provider.

  4. Two different subnets for our internal network.

  5. ISP > Nethserver > LAN1/2 > Wifi AP

  6. LAN2 is at the 2nd floor which has a router of its own. I just want to let it stay as it is. Also, for educational purposes, I never tried connecting two different networks that can see each other :grinning:

Thanks

4

As mentioned, 7b2 has a lot of extra’s. And upgrading from 7b2 to the full version will be like do a regular update of the system.
I understood upgrading from 6.8 to 7 will be available too through the web admin page. I think @davidep will be able to tell you all about this.

So if I understand correctly, you have 2 floors with about 10 clients each. Ultimately, they could be in the same subnet because it is all 1 company and everybody should be able to use all services. But since you have a separate switch on the other floor, they are physically separated and getting another subnet.
You could just put the cable from the switch on the other floor straight into the switch on the main floor. This would connect both floors and you have the same subnet on both floors. I don’t know what type of switches you use, but keep in mind that all the users of the other floor will share the bandwidth of the connecting port. Some switches have SFP ports with higher speeds or the option to bind multiple ports for more bandwidth.
It would avoid the hassle of creating routes from the 2 internal subnets. It also will make it possible to use roaming for wifi users if your accesspoints support that. It would also mean that you only need 1 interface for your internal network on your server.

Multi Wan is very well explained in the documentation: http://docs.nethserver.org/en/latest/firewall.html#multi-wan

I strongly suggest to read the Networking documentation entirely. I am sure it will make things a lot clearer for you: http://docs.nethserver.org/en/latest/base_system.html#network and http://docs.nethserver.org/en/latest/base_system.html#network-services

5

@armanperalta did you resolve with @Robb advice?

We’re working on this