Server 2008 as a NAT Router

[ACiD GRiM]

My uncle gave me a few surplus networking devices including a cicso access-point and a box with Server 2008 Datacenter running on it a month ago. His business was upgrading to newer hardware. Now its been sitting in my room for weeks, but I've decided that it would make a great file server. The only problem is that the 802.11g usb adapter is too far away from my home network router, so it only connects at about 18Mbps most of the time and I only get transfer speeds of about 400-700KBps (Even with a high over-head, I'd hope for at least 1-2MBps). So here's what I want to do to hopefully make everything faster, and learn some networking skills for my A+ class i have coming up this semester.

I'm hoping to setup the Server as a Router with internet access from the WLAN. I don't want computers connected to the server to see computers connected to the home network (that the WLAN is connected to), but I guess this can be done by setting up a different subnet. I also want to be able to port forward some ranges to specific ips (I know how to set address bindings in DHCP server) I'm going touse the Access-point as the means that computers connect which is setup as a NAT forwarder. And my main goal is to get all connections in this to become "identified" in the network and sharing center so that I can Name the connection and define them as Private to allow all file sharing.

I already know how to configure the Cisco router, as I've played around with it before. I've also explored Server 2008 and I've tried to setup the DHCP, DNS, and Network Policy Roles, but I only have experience with home OSs like XP and Vista. I'm not looking for a hand-holding, but just some general ideas at how to set this up. I actually know what I'm doing when it come to Windows OS's, just this is a whole new relm for me, so if anyone can help me I would really appreciate it.

Edit: One other thing, the box has two 100Mbps Ethernet NIC's, one that i've connected to teh access point, and the other I leave loose so that I can direct connect my laptop for large file transfers. I want to configure that as ANOTHER seperate network (again a different subnet?)

-ben

Edited August 16, 2008 by ACiD GRiM

[CoffeeFiend]

and a box with Server 2008 Datacenter

The Datacenter Ed is basically the Enterprise Ed, except it can be used on servers with more than 8 sockets. Considering that it costs $3000 per processor (not counting CALs), nobody would waste money buying it unless you have more than 8 processors (at 8 processors, Enterprise Ed is "only" $4000, and Datacenter Ed is $24000). So your uncle must be filthy rich! Giving away "old" 16 processor servers (likely 64 cores) with a $48000 OS license included.

Either ways, Windows makes for a very poor NAT solution (be it using ICS or RRAS), unless you go for the extremely over-complicated/beyond overkill ISA Server 2006 for a mere $1500/CPU option. A $50 WRT54GL works a million times better IMO (and supports VLANs and tons of advanced things, is low power, maintenance|trouble|hassle-free and all that) I like Windows as much as the next guy, but NAT is one of the things it's really not so great for.

If you connect at 18Mbps, you should be getting a couple megabytes of data per second, and seemingly you're only getting ~1/4 of that. There's got to be a bottleneck somewhere and it's hard to just guess where it is.

[ACiD GRiM]

I think he just threw a copy on it, becaue I just looked at the system properties when I read the cost you just said and it hasn't been activated, it has 107 days left. (lol, the server is only a dual Xenon (from the P4 generation I think)). Well thanks for telling me that server 2008 is a cruddy NAT OS, I wish I had known that yesterday, I spent the whole day trying to get it to work.

I'm going to spend some time looking for a 3rd party app, or just dig up an old router (i was really hoping to put that access point to use.

[CoffeeFiend]

the server is only a dual Xenon (from the P4 generation I think)

Those are pretty power hungry. You don't really want to have one of those run idle like that 24/7 at your place. It would probably cost you like $200 extra in electricity per year (whereas a good router that runs Linux will only cost you like $50 in the first place, and use almost no power).

server 2008 is a cruddy NAT OS

When it comes to NAT, there's a LOT of better solutions for sure. Most being Linux or BSD based, free, and running on a wide range of hardware from inexpensive low-power embedded devices like routers to high-end servers. From do-it-yourself solutions using standard tools and apps, to ready-to-use solutions (e.g. pfSense, SmoothWall, m0n0wall, ClarkConnect, etc).

[ACiD GRiM]

I'll look into it, I'm not too happy with linux because i've had the bad experience of spending 3 days trying to install a driver for my NIC, giving up and geting it done in 15 minutes in windows.

I have the Box set to shut off at 8PM and to auto start at 9AM, so it's not going to be on all day.

edit: i'm set on using windows for this, I'm going to stay with the OS that is on there until it runs out just to learn what I need to do. I'm getting an Visual studio subscription to MSDN (with the OS package) for my birthday in November so I'll use server 2008 standard then. But for now, even if its difficult, does anyone know where a good resource for learning how to configure server 2008 as a NAT router? I looked at some other apps and they are all command based, and I don't have THAT much patience.

Edited August 16, 2008 by ACiD GRiM

[CoffeeFiend]

I have the Box set to shut off at 8PM and to auto start at 9AM, so it's not going to be on all day.

So you have no internet from when you wake up at like 7am until 9am, and no internet past 8pm, so it'll "only" cost $100/year to power that? Just so it uses Windows? Even if you're dead set on using Windows' inferior NAT solutions, I'd at least use something less power hungry.

I looked at some other apps and they are all command based, and I don't have THAT much patience.

This might sound harsh, but I hope you won't take it the wrong way. If you don't have enough patience to learn simple command line environments & commands, and using industry standard solutions & tools for problems like this, then perhaps you shouldn't bother with your A+ or IT in general (or getting Visual Studio for that matter). With IT budgets being slashed non-stop, IT people always expected to do more with less and all that, it's not surprising to see Linux's presence to be increasing a LOT, especially on servers (particularly for tasks like NAT and DNS)

A cheap box with Linux (or BSD) will handle NAT/firewall a million times better than Windows will (and with VLANs, QoS, advanced routing, etc), and it'll also run Apache + MySQL + PostgreSQL + PHP + Perl + Python and more for your "web" needs, Squid, Tomcat, can be used as a domain controller (using samba) or active directory (using OpenLDAP) controller, handle file shares (CIFS, NFS, etc using samba), print server usage (CUPS), DNS (BIND + OpenDNS), DHCP, PXE, mail, CVS + SVN + Hg + whatever other SCM repositories you want, a DynDNS client (for home), SSH, FTP server duties (+ SFTP & SCP) using one of many rock-solid & full-featured FTP servers, can be used as a SAN (i.e. as a iSCSI target, or ATAoE or whatever you want), handle backup'ing documents/computers over the network, VPN (e.g. OpenVPN), running dozens of great/handy network apps (like Nagios, Munin, Cacti, RRDool, etc), will work as a VM server (using Xen or KVM or VMware Server or whatever), and countless more things.

All that (much more than any Windows box could handle) for $0 worth of licenses, $0 worth of CALs, and $0 for each subsequent OS upgrade...

[ACiD GRiM]

I see what you are saying...

I have a bit of paranoia so I've encrypted all of my valuable HDD's with bitlocker via my vista ultimate on my laptop, and the ability to hook them up to a central file server where i can access the files from any where in the house is perfect for me. I'm doing this all just as an experiment to test my skills because I've grown tired of chasing down flaws in vista and making them to my liking. The A+ class is just to look good on my resume, I'm only 18 right now. I'm willing to look into linux, because I'm smart enough to see that it is a big force in the IT world, but for my purposes a windows OS is what i need. I run some game servers that only compile for win32, and I don't want to use WINE. When I said I don't have THAT much patience, I meant that I don't want to learn a new OS just for a (hopefully) one shot and its done project. I'm also taking a C++ class and I know that it would be dumb not to expand my horizons to linux (I use a Fedora Core VM on my laptop to toy around with it).

As for your comment about the power consumption, really cost isn't an issue for me. I don't want to sound like some spoiled rich kid, my family is pretty well off. It dosen't effect my internet access, because, I have a router that handles the home network, and I just want to set up a seperate network that treats the home router as the ISP, so that all of the activity on my new network won't effect the existing one.

edit: Just by doing more research I agree with you that Server 2008 has really bad routing capabilities, but the challange with dealing with any problems for a micro network like mine (only about 2-3 clients will connect at any one time) is outweighed by the ability to run win32 programs on it.

thanks for your comments.

attatched is a lame paint sketch of what I want to accomplish

Edited August 17, 2008 by ACiD GRiM

[ArchDem]

Give me access and i'll do it for you.

'nough said.