How to: Assign TCP/IP addresses

How to: Assign TCP/IP addresses

Doc No. 000142
Product NetNow 3, NetNow 5
Version All
Category Other

Issue
This document is intended to be used as a guide to assigning TCP/IP addresses on your Network. Please read this document thoroughly before making any changes to your existing network protocols, or adding the TCP/IP protocol.

If you are in any doubt about setting up TCP/IP, please consult with a network consulant, and not RedRock Technologies. A working TCP/IP network is a pre-requisite to installing NetNow.

Solution
Before you can begin using NetNow! it is essential that both the NetNow server machine, and the client machines that wish to use NetNow have the TCP/IP protocol installed, and are able to communicate using this protocol. You may already have other protocols installed on your machine such as IPX/SPX, NetBEUI etc, in order to use NetNow! you will need to install and assign a unique "IP Address" to your machines.

IP Addresses
When assigning IP addresses , you will notice that you will already have one installed on the NetNow! server machine. This IP Address will be used by "Dial up networking", you will now need to install another completely separate TCP/IP protocol for use on your local area network.

IMPORTANT
These two arrangements are to all intents and purposes completely separate, and should therefore be treated as such. Configure your dial-up networking protocols and addresses exactly as your internet service provider has advised.

Also if you already have an TCP/IP addresses assigned to your machine, then you will not need to alter these settings. Please check this before proceeding.

Example TCP/IP Addresses
Here is an example of how you could configure the TCP/IP addresses of two machines on a network:

Setup the Netnow! server machine with an TCP/IP address of 192.168.0.1 and use a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

Setup the client machine with an TCP/IP address of 192.168.0.2 and use the same subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

Therefore if you have more machines on your network and you wish to assign them an TCP/IP address, their address should run incrementally from 192.168.0.3

Important information about Gateways
One thing that you should not do when assigning TCP/IP addresses to machines that will be using the NetNow! proxy server, is to let them think they have a gateway out to the internet. There is a configuration option in the TCP/IP set up which will allow you to configure this gateway. DO NOT supply the IP address of the dial-up networking TCP/IP setup as a gateway on another machine (this should be set once in the dial up networking properties of the netnow machine, and will have been configured when this machine was setup to access the internet).

Communicating via TCP/IP
Before installing NetNow! you will need to check that the machines on your network can now talk to each other using the TCP/IP protocol. The easiest way to do this is to use the utility program "Ping". This program sends a packet of information to an TCP/IP address specified by the user, and then returns the packet back to the sender. When the packet is returned, it will report to the user the time taken for this exercise, in milli-seconds. There are a number or other programs for route tracing, but PING is the most simple.

From the NetNow! server machine, open up a DOS prompt and type in the following command: PING 192.168.0.2

If you have successfully installed the TCP/IP addresses, you will get a response back telling you the time taken to communicate with that address. If you not installed the TCP/IP addresses correctly you will get an error message saying "Destination host not found" (or words to similar effect).

You can also check that you are using the ping command correctly by trying it on your own TCP/IP address. Therefore on the NetNow! server machine issue the following command: PING 192.168.0.1

Now repeat the same process from the client machines, only this time you will be pinging the NetNow server machine. Therefore on the client machine issue the following command: PING 192.168.0.1

When you are in a situation where you can ping the NetNow server machine from the clients, and you can ping the clients from the NetNow! server machine, they you are ready to install NetNow!.

Using a "HOSTS" file (optional).
You should now be in a situation where you can communicate via TCP/IP across your network. To make things simpler you can also set up a hosts file (if you are using Windows clients). This will in effect call the netnow machine "Netnow" and tell the client machines where they can find NetNow! automatically.

On each machine on the network, open the windows directory , and you should see a file called "hosts" (if this file does not exist, then create it with a text editing program). This file contains TCP/IP addresses and machine names, it may have entries in it already or none at all. Open this file with a text editor. Insert a new line as below:

192.168.0.1 netnow

Having done this, save the file, and reboot your machine.

Now try pinging this machine. Open a DOS prompt and type: PING netnow

If entered correctly, this will reference the name "netnow" against the host file and translate this to an IP address.

On the NetNow! server machine, open the hosts file and instead of adding the line above, add this line:

127.0.0.1 localhost

If you have the host files correctly configured on your machines, you will be able to use the name of "netnow" instead of an IP address when configuring the e-mail clients.

NOTES
This document is intended as a guide to assigning IP addresses, RedRock Technologies Ltd do not provide support in this issue.

More detailed information and support on this subject can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/support/