Wiley Mastering Windows Server 2008 Networking Foundations
Contents
1. IPX SPX Internet Packet Exchange Sequenced Packet Exchange the protocol that Nov ell NetWare predominantly used for years TCP IPv4 Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol the protocol of the Internet and intranets Windows Server 2008 changes this equation somewhat You won t find support for IPX SPX in Windows Server 2008 which means it won t communicate with that old NetWare server on your network In addition you won t find NetBEUI support in Windows Server 2008 because Microsoft has replaced this protocol with TCP IP However Windows Server does add support for TCP IPv6 which provides additional address space which means it supports additional devices and better security The article at http technet microsoft com en us library bb878121 aspx provides great information on the new features provided by TCP IPv6 Your only choices for transport protocols in Windows Server 2008 are TCP IPv4 and TCP IPv6 It s a good bet that you re using TCP IPv4 right now Why TCP IPv4 Well there have been some really great protocols over the years but because the Internet uses TCP IP and the Internet is so popular TCP IP has sort of trumped the other protocols In fact it s impossible to do a fair number of things that 2008 and its predecessors Windows 2000 and to a lesser extent Windows NT 4 are capable of doing without TCP IP Because TCP IPv6 is so new few Internet service providers ISPs require it and it s doubtful yo2. a better buy than purchasing the WAP separately Network Ready Device In days gone by most devices such as printers camcorders and cameras were dependent on a connection with a computer to gain network connectivity You plugged the device into the computer and shared the device with others on the network and then other people would access the device through this shared connection This approach to networking wastes resources because you now need a computer to create the required connec tion Network ready devices have a NIC built into them and provide the software required to create the network connection You access a network ready device the same way you do any computer on the network The network ready devices do cost more than standard devices so you need to weigh the added cost of the device against the cost of using the computer to Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 9 WHAT S THE POINT OF NETWORKS AND NETWORKING 9 provide a connection In some cases such as a small network that has a server and only a few devices using standard devices may actually prove less expensive in the long run Most routers support only two networks However it s possible to find routers that support more all the way up to 128 networks but you ll pay a hefty price for them Wireless Access Point A wireless access point WAP is a type of router It creates a connec tion between a wired network and wireless dev
3. connection to a common network People who worry about the physical connection part of networking concern themselves with getting cables run through walls calling the phone company to arrange for persistently connected data links of various kinds links with names like digital subscriber line cable modem frame relay leased lines T1 or T3 lines and then working with a family of hardware that helps get the bits going off in the right direction devices with names like switches hubs and routers Does 2008 help you with this part of the job In some parts it can Switches and hubs are very basic simple devices and 2008 has nothing to do with them although clearly 2008 depends on their presence in order to network Routers are however more complex devices You probably know that the market leader in the router world is a firm named Cisco Systems but you might not know that a router is really just a small single purpose computer If you wanted you could use a computer running Server 2008 to replace a Cisco router Additionally if you wanted to allow people outside your network to dial in to your network you could use a Windows Server 2008 to make that possible Considering the Hardware This chapter has already discussed a lot of hardware Although the hardware part of the picture isn t hard to understand you do need to understand it in order to create your network Networks have some basic hardware that you must have in order to ens
4. point for other mail servers to send mail destined for your organization You can outsource this function by letting your ISP act as your mail server but running your own mail server gives you more flexibility How ever it does require a persistent connection to the Internet 2008 s new features include a basic e mail server Yes it s basic because Microsoft really wants to sell you Exchange as your mail server But it s not a bad server for many people s needs Terminal Servers A terminal server harks back to the days of mainframes think about the huge computers you may have seen in older movies a mainframe is a single large computer used to serve a number of people Someone using a terminal would log into the mainframe from a remote location to access the features that the mainframe provides Modern users rely on this feature to access the server from a remote location using less capable devices Some companies use this service to save money Administrators rely on this feature to manage the server Using a terminal server application called Remote Desktop means you don t have to walk to the server to perform administration tasks Group Scheduling Servers The centralized nature of servers means that they re a great place to keep track of scarce resources like meeting rooms or your time Server 2008 does not come with a scheduling server because Microsoft wants to sell you Exchange to do that sort of thing But there are alt
5. them to connect to a local network and the other to connect to the Internet NICs have specific characteristics some of which are important for everyone to know and some of which are only helpful to technicians The most important NIC characteristic is its connection speed because the connection speed determines how fast the NIC can communicate with other machines connected to the network Cable A cable provides a physical connection between the NIC contained within the machine you want to connect to the network and the hub switch or router used to distribute signals to the rest of the network Cables come in a confusing array of sizes and types The most impor tant characteristic of the cable is the connection speed it supports You must match the connec tion speed of the cable to the NIC Otherwise the NIC won t be able to connect at full speed In some special cases you need cables with other characteristics For example if you want to Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 8 CHAPTER1 WHY NETWORK run the cable through a false ceiling or through air ducts you may need special cable designed for that purpose often called plenum cable Plenum cable resists burning and doesn t produce as many noxious chemicals if it does burn but it costs a lot more than standard cable Check the local electrical code to ensure you use the right kind of cable for a specific purpose Hub A hub is the least expensive conne
6. 3 First NT Workstation 5 1 or as it s better known XP Professional and its lesser sibling XP Home Microsoft intended to follow up with the server version of NT 5 1 but events conspired to compel them to wait a bit longer and produce NT Server 5 2 that is Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is a 1 1 version of Windows 2000 a welcome improvement to 2000 s fit and finish And now we reach Windows Server 2008 which builds a wealth of functionality onto the pre vious offerings Of course it now supports TCP IPv6 which is an addition for the future The best news is that Windows Server 2008 provides significant new security features For example even the administrator doesn t have access to the root directory Windows folder or Windows System32 folder so trying to corrupt executables within these folders is significantly more dif ficult The new Windows firewall provides both incoming and outgoing firewall support so outsiders will find it much more difficult to gain entry to your server especially if you have other firewalls in place The administrator also runs as an average user now and must give permission to perform certain tasks This feature makes it much harder for an outsider to do something without the administrator s knowledge In short Windows Server 2008 is a welcome improvement to the one issue that people complain about most Windows security For those of you who fought through Windows network configura
7. Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 1 Chapter 1 Why Network If you re reading this book then you have an interest in Microsoft networking For some people networking sounds like a scary topic but it really isn t Getting a network running doesn t need to be hard and this chapter explains many of the reasons why you want to set up a network when you have multiple machines to use Windows Server 2008 makes networking considerably easier than ever in fact so you ll find that you do less work than ever before to get a network up and running In this chapter we ll give you a bit of history on Server 2008 and then take a very high altitude look at why we re using Microsoft s networking software in the first place This is not intended to prepare you for a test on networking essentials nor is it a complete book on Windows past and present What I m trying to accomplish in this chapter is to answer these questions Why should you care about all of this networking stuff anyway What do you need to create a simple network Why does Microsoft s networking software approach networking the way that it does What s the Point of Networks and Networking In a way this chapter is penance for my youthful misdeeds When I was in the seventh grade I had a math teacher named Mr Schtazle Seventh grade math was a kind of potpourri of mathematical topics I recall one chapter that took pains to drill into our heads the d
8. Point WAP Connector Network Interface Card NIC Pej e oO Connector Connector Connector Internet a Internet Connection Clients and Servers Must Speak the Same Protocols But simply being connected to the same wire isn t enough we need a common communications language If I were to pick up a phone and dial some number in Beijing I d have a physical connec tion with whatever poor soul picked the phone on the other end but that would be the extent of our interaction In the same way computer networks need to agree on things like What s the biggest block of data that I can ever send you and How shall I acknowledge that I actually got that block of data or Should I bother acknowledging receipt of data at all and hundreds of other questions The answers to all those questions are contained in the network language or in network techie terms the network transport protocol It probably won t surprise you that more than one Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 11 WHAT S THE POINT OF NETWORKS AND NETWORKING 11 network transport protocol exists and over the years NT and other versions of Windows Server have generally supported three of them NetBEUI Network Basic Input Output System Extended User Interface an old Microsoft IBM Sytek protocol designed to support small networks
9. akup with IBM delayed the release of a 386 based product and in a sense Microsoft never released the 386 based product Instead of continuing to climb the ladder of Intel processor capabilities Microsoft decided to build a processor independent operating system that would sit in roughly the same market position as Unix It could then be implemented for the 386 and later chips and it also could run well on other processors such as the PowerPC Alpha and MIPS chips Microsoft called this new operating system NT for new technology Not only would NT serve as a workstation operating system but it would also arrive in a network server version to be called LAN Manager NT No products ever shipped with that name but the wallpaper that NT Server displays when no one is logged in is called LANMANNT BMP to this day In August 1993 Microsoft released LAN Manager NT with the name NT Advanced Server In a shameless marketing move it was labeled version 3 1 in order to match the version numbers of the Windows desktop products This first version of NT Advanced Server performed quite well However it was memory hungry lacked Novell connectivity and had only the most basic TCP IP connectivity September 1994 brought a new version and a new name Microsoft Windows NT Server version 3 5 Version 3 5 was mainly a polish of 3 1 it was less memory hungry it included Novell and TCP IP connectivity right in the box and it included Windows for Workg
10. an IBM product under the name of the IBM PC Network Support Program IBM viewed it as little more than some software to go along with IBM s PC Network LAN boards and later its Token Ring cards The server software was DOS based offered minimal security and to be honest performed terribly Believe me I know I used to install them for people But the software had two main effects on the market First the fact that IBM sold a LAN product legitimized the whole industry IBM made it pos sible for others to make a living selling network products And that led to the second effect the growth of Novell Once IBM legitimized the idea of a LAN most companies responded by going out and getting the LAN operating system that offered the best bang for the buck That was an easy decision NetWare In the early days of networking Novell established itself as the perfor mance leader You could effectively serve about twice as many workstations with Novell NetWare as you could with any of the MS NET products So Novell prospered As time went on however Microsoft got better at building network products 3Com wanting to offer a product that was compatible with the IBM PC Network software licensed MS NET and resold it as their 3 software 3Com knew quite a bit about networking however and recognized the limitations of MS NET So 3Com reworked MS NET to improve its performance a fact that didn t escape Microsoft s attention From 1985 to 1988 Micr
11. an interesting side note Ten years after Compaq now HP decided that its sales force couldn t sell network software it reversed direction and said it would sell a special version of Windows 2000 called Datacenter Server It s special because you cannot buy it from Microsoft you must buy it preinstalled on specially certified vendor hardware In other words the hardware vendors HP is not the only one selling Datacenter now believe that they can sell complex network operating systems 1 wish them the best of luck but stay tuned to see the outcome of this particular marketing maneuver LAN Manager in its first incarnation still wasn t half the product that Novell NetWare was but it was getting there LAN Manager 2 greatly closed the gap and in fact on some benchmarks LAN Manager outpaced Novell NetWare Additionally LAN Manager included administrative and security features that brought it even closer to Novell NetWare in the minds of many network managers Slowly LAN Manager gained about a 20 percent share of the network market When Microsoft designed LAN Manager however it designed it for the 286 chip more accu rately I should say again that LAN Manager was built atop OS 2 1 x and OS 2 1 x was built for the 286 chip LAN Manager s 286 foundation hampered its performance and sales In contrast Novell designed their premier products NetWare 3 and 4 to use the full capabilities of the 386 and later processors Microsoft s bre
12. ctivity solution for a network You connect one end of the cable into the NIC and the other end into the hub Voil you are now part of the network Every computer or other device such as a printer that wants to be part of the network has the same connection setup Hubs can usually have 2 4 8 16 or 32 computers or other devices con nected to them with 8 being the most common Each connection to a hub is a port You should buy a hub with enough ports to support all the devices on your network with a few to spare When you run out of ports you can purchase another hub connect the two hubs together using a special port and then plug additional computers into the new hub Connecting multiple hubs together is daisy chaining Because hubs are very simple devices they are also extremely reli able However the reliability and cost savings comes at the price of performance and ease of maintenance If you need a high speed connection or you have many devices to connect then a switch is a better option than using a hub The most important characteristic of a hub is the connection speed it supports The connection speed must match the speed of the NICs on a network Switch Switches work precisely the same as hubs from the outside You connect one end of the cable into the NIC and the other end into the switch to create a connection to the network However switches include additional internal circuitry and provide performance benefits A switch can ma
13. e network with a WAP at http www homenethelp com web diagram wireless bridge xp asp The diagrams at http msdn2 microsoft com en us library aa934598 aspx show you how you might attach a network ready device The diagram at http www weresc com home php is signifi cantly more complex than the other two but it shows you that networks can be any size If you want to create your own network diagram using the hardware discussed in this chapter check out the free program at http www supershareware com info edraw network diagrammer htm1 After you look at a number of designs put together by other people you ll want to spend some time creating your own diagram The diagram need not be very complicated However you need to provide enough information to ensure you can create a good network setup Figure 1 2 shows a network diagram that includes many of the elements that you ll probably have on your network This diagram doesn t represent your network any more than the diagrams I referenced earlier through Web sites it s just another example that you can use to create your own diagram This diagram shows a number of important features Every computer and network ready device can have a NIC that is separate from that device Yes the NIC appears inside the unit but it may not come with the unit you may have to purchase this item separately and ask the vendor to install it for you The connector shown in Figure 1 1 will appear somewhere o
14. e particular computer hardware that I ve got stashed in my network room connected to the Internet Instead server means the program running on Mark s computer that listens for HTTP requests and knows how to fulfill them Now that I ve gone through all of that consider again the question that I asked at the begin ning of the chapter why are you bothering with a network The answer is probably because you want to offer a Web site either internally or on the public Internet and you think that IIS is the best highest performance cheapest or some combination of the two Web server software around which means that you must use Server 2008 because it s the only operating system that supports IIS 7 Or you could use an earlier version of Server and an earlier version of IIS but why not go with the latest and greatest Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 5 WHAT S THE POINT OF NETWORKS AND NETWORKING 5 OTHER TYPES OF SERVERS TIl tend to use the Web client server example for this discussion But I don t want to lose sight of the fact that there are quite a few client server systems besides Web servers that are in com mon use and that you may want to use 2008 to create Returning to the theme of this chapter then Why do I care or why do I need this stuff networks offer several valuable services and you may want to set up a computer to act as a server and offer some of those
15. ernatives to Exchange there are some terrific Web based scheduling tools that work great on 2008 for one example take a look at ww mattkruse com scripts calendar or other tools such as Lotus Notes SharePoint Servers A SharePoint server lets users collaborate with other users even when they aren t physically located in the same place Users from England the United States and Japan could work on documents together as if they were all located in the same place wewt W2K8 Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 6 6 CHAPTER1 WHY NETWORK As with a local connection users can also share information such as contacts with each other An administrator can also use a SharePoint server to place deploy applications on remote systems without physically visiting those locations E Commerce Online Stores If you ve got something great to sell then the Web s one place to do it There are thousands of online stores on the Web and a good number of them run on 2008 While 2008 includes a Web server it doesn t include the other software that you d need to create a complete online store But there are a lot of consulting and programming firms that would be happy to help you create an online store atop 2008 Microsoft has adopted new terminology for Windows Server 2008 that makes it easier to under stand the difference between a service that the server provides and a piece of software that makes the server pe
16. first version of NT NT was the earliest version of Windows Server that Microsoft initially offered in 1993 and a newer than NT anyway method that the Internet has been using for years The last network piece then is that networks must provide a way for users to find their services Let s examine these pieces in order take a closer look at why they work the way that they do and get some insight into how Windows 2008 in particular handles them This chapter only begins the discussion of networks Some topics are so important that we decided to discuss them in detail in Chapters 2 and 3 You won t actually install Windows Server 2008 until Chapter 4 these initial chapters will help you understand and prepare for your network Choosing a Network Type Windows networks fall into two categories workgroup and domain A workgroup network con nects multiple computers in a peer to peer configuration which means that every computer can serve as both a client and a server Workgroups are very simple and you normally use them for smaller groups of computers usually less than 10 but I ve seen much larger workgroups of up to 100 computers A workgroup doesn t require a centralized server but you can certainly use one Workgroups typically require little time to set up and configure but they can become a night mare to manage when they exceed a certain size The fact that you don t necessarily need to have a server also means that workgr
17. he building plus a few pieces of additional hardware described in the Networks Need Connection Hardware and Links section of the chapter If however you want to offer your service to the world as in the case of a Web server then you ll need some kind of wide area network WAN connection to the Internet Most companies today rely on a virtual private network VPN to ferry data safely across the Internet In other cases you ll need a WAN connection but not to the Internet Many organizations with more than one location connect those locations via private communications links with names like leased line T1 or frame relay That s our next networking piece Networks need connection hardware switches hubs routers modems and links phone lines network cables frame relay DSL cable modem ISDN and so on or the clients can t connect to the servers Fourth to provide a service over a network your server and your clients must agree on how to transmit information over that network That agreement is called a network protocol and the one that you ll most probably use in the Windows 2008 world is called the Transmission Control Protocol Internet Protocol TCP IP You may have heard of it before as it s the network protocol that the Internet uses but you needn t be on the Internet to use it In short clients and servers must agree to speak using the same network protocols NOTE Windows Server 2008 provides two different versi
18. ices The wireless devices use radio waves to communicate with the WAP As with most network devices you plug the WAP into a hub switch or router to create the connection to the wired network The critical consideration for a WAP is the standards to which the WAP adheres For example if your laptop provides an 802 11g connection then your WAP must support the 802 11 specification or the two devices won t communicate with each other The 802 11b and 802 11 specifications are the most com mon in use today but you must check your wireless devices to determine which standard they follow In some cases the WAP will support multiple standards You ll want all your wireless devices to use the same standard because some wireless connection standards don t work well with others because of radio wave interference Another consideration is the antenna range for the WAP This range determines the maximum distance that can separate the wireless device and the WAP Always remember that the distance between the wireless device and the WAP affects transmission speed You may think that you ll get 54 Mbps transmission speed but you won t when you re at the maximum distance In fact most WAPs provide multiple fallback speeds so you need to know the slowest speed you can expect before losing the connection completely It often helps to view network diagrams put together by other people before you create your own network For example you can see a basic hom
19. ifference between precision and accuracy and I d plague the poor man at the beginning of every chapter by asking him How will we use this a slightly more polite version of Why do we care Well nowadays I find that when I m teaching a room full of people about Windows Server I ve got to be careful to answer the question Why do you care even if it isn t asked Because if I don t answer that then many people in the room will leave the class with a pretty good notion of how to accomplish a bunch of tasks but not a really good feel for why they d do the tasks in the first place And you know what Answering the Why do I care question can be pretty rough some times So Mr Schtazle if you re out there my apologies Let s consider these two questions Why network in the first place If we agree that networking is a good thing why do we do it this way Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 2 2 CHAPTER1 WHY NETWORK The answer to the first question will turn out to be pretty straightforward Networking solves a set of problems for us The answer to the question Why do we do it this way is a bit longer First and foremost you re doing this to try to solve some problem that networking can help you with Your company might want for example a great Web site or to be able to send and receive e mail or a simple file and print server for a small office or to share da
20. ke smart connections between two devices on the network to speed commu nication between them When working with a hub all of the computers on the network hear the message that another computer sends but switches direct the message specifically to the computer that needs to hear it In addition switches normally contain diagnostic hardware to make it easier to find problems on your network Of course you don t get this extra circuitry free switches cost more than hubs do As with hubs the switch connection speed must match the connection speed of NICs on the network Router A router is similar to a switch or hub but it includes something extra the ability to connect to the outside world A router is similar to a computer with two NICs in it One set of connections is for the local network while the second set of connections is for the outside world The vendor labels the connections so you can t make a mistake in creating the required connections Routers also include some of the features of a server including a firewall for secu rity purposes The features you obtain with the router depends on the kind of router you buy For example some routers include special support for standard TCP IP features and some even include a wireless access point WAP to connect with wireless devices Make sure you get a router that includes all the features you need For example if you have wireless devices then getting a router with a built in WAP is
21. n the case You connect a cable from the device to the hub or switch as shown In some cases you might actually connect the computers and network ready devices directly to the router instead of using a separate connection as shown Notice that the router provides a connection to the Internet the hub or switch won t provide this connection Do you see that lightning bolt next to the WAP That lightning bolt represents a connection made using radio waves a wireless connection Any device such as a laptop designed to use the wireless standard supported by the WAP can connect to the network through the WAP as shown You shouldn t add a WAP to your network unless you actually need it because a WAP can Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 10 10 CHAPTER1 WHY NETWORK cause security breaches that you wouldn t experience when using wired connections As shown in Figure 1 2 the WAP provides a bridge between the wired and wireless connections on your network FIGURE 1 2 Computer System Computer System Creating a diagram of your network is impor tant if you want to get Network Interface Network Interface good results Card NIC Card NIC Connector Connector Cables Switch or Hub S 5 5 5 22 2 22 SjJ Sj cj s SjJ Sj Ssj sSs ojojojo s rico ele Wireless AZ Devices Wireless Access Network Ready Device
22. o types of connector Notice that the RJ45 connector is larger and that it has 8 pins in it rather than the 4 or 6 pins of an RJ10 RJ11 or RJ12 connec tor used for a telephone When you plug a connector into a NIC hub switch or router the receptacle normally lights up to show you have a good connection You should look for these lights when you need to find a loose connection It s a bad idea to plug and unplug connec tors too often because the connection can become loose and cause you a lot of trouble FIGURE 1 1 8 1 1 Typical Ethernet pun connectors The male Lae connector appears on each end of the cable Male RJ45 Connector Female RJ45 Connector while the female 2 Typical Ethemet connectors the male connector appears on each connector appears with end of the cable while the female connector appears with the computer the computer hub hup switch router or other device connection switch router or other device connection Network Interface Card NIC A network interface card NIC connects the computer to the network It provides all of the hardware features required to make an electrical connection and perform low level networking tasks A NIC won t provide the connection by itself Windows provides software required to make the NIC functional Most machines today have one or two NICs supplied with them You must have one NIC for each connection you want to create A machine with two NICs can use one of
23. ons of IP IP version 4 IPv4 and IP version 6 IPv6 IPv4 is the version of IP used by the Internet today In most cases it s the only version of IP you need to support today IPv6 provides additional addresses some extra security and a few other features This version of IP provides functionality you need tomorrow but you don t need to worry about it today Because Microsoft chose to install IPv6 by default in Windows Server 2008 you may want to disable this support in order to gain some additional system performance Chapter 2 tells you how to create an optimal setup that uses IPv4 efficiently the companion enterprise volume Mastering Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Technologies discusses 1Pv6 in detail Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 3 WHAT S THE POINT OF NETWORKS AND NETWORKING 3 Fifth once you have the channels open and before information starts flowing in both directions you ll almost certainly need to worry about security When you use the tool that is networking you want to be sure it doesn t increase your risk and in fact you can shape the tool so it reduces hazards Briefly Networks need security Chapter 2 introduces you to the topic of security Sixth and finally once you ve set up that terrific network service you need a way for people to find that great service You do that with a naming system Windows 2008 has two of them one that appeared years ago before the
24. osoft worked on its second generation of networking software The software was based on its OS 2 version 1 operating system Remember Microsoft was the main driving force behind OS 2 from 1985 through early 1990 Steve Ballmer Microsoft s number two guy promised publicly in 1988 that Microsoft would go the distance with OS 2 Hey the world changes and you ve got to change with it right Seeing the good work that 3Com did with MS NET Microsoft worked as a partner with 3Com to build the next generation of LAN soft ware Called Microsoft LAN Manager this network server software was built atop the more powerful OS 2 operating system As with the earlier MS NET Microsoft s intention was never to directly market LAN Manager Instead Microsoft envisioned IBM 3Com Compaq and others selling it IBM did indeed sell LAN Manager it still does in the guise of OS 2 LAN Server 3Com sold LAN Manager for years as 3 Open but found little profit in it and got out of the software business In late 1990 Compaq announced that it would not sell LAN Manager because it was too complex a product for dealers to explain sell and support Microsoft decided then that if LAN Manager were to be sold it would have to do the selling so on the very same day as the Compaq withdrawal Microsoft announced it would begin selling LAN Manager directly Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 13 A BRIEF HISTORY OF WINDOWS 13 NOTE Here s
25. otices the lack of the images and requests that the server send them which it does again using HTTP Here HTTP client just means a program that knows how to speak a language that transfers a particular kind of data Web data Your computer is deaf to the Web unless it knows how to request and receive data via HTTP Notice what client means here It doesn t refer to you or even to your computer Instead it just means a program that your computer runs THE SERVER PIECE A WEB SERVER Next let s consider what s sitting on my side of the conversation TIl need a computer running a special piece of software that is designed to listen for your computer or anyone else s for that matter requesting to see my Web pages via HTTP and that can respond to those requests by transferring those pages to the requesting client software You might call such a piece of software an HTTP server program although almost no one calls it by that name You d more commonly call it Web server software There is a variety of Web server software that I might run on my Windows Server 2008 computer but I m most likely to run the one that comes free with Server 2008 a program called Internet Information Services IIS 7 Alternatively I might find download probably using HTTP and install a popular piece of free Web server software called Apache Once again notice carefully what server means here It does not really refer to th
26. oups can be less expensive A domain provides fully centralized services It always requires that you set up a server and the server must provide support for advanced management features such as Active Directory Domains provide stronger security than workgroups do because everything is under the tight control of the server In addition domains provide centralized administration Normally you use domains for larger networks They require a lot more time and effort to set up configure and administer for a small number of computers but a domain also offers significant advantages over a workgroup As the size of your network groups increases administration costs go down and performance increases when compared to a workgroup Network Client and Server Software The reason that we network computers in the first place is so that computers acting as clients can benefit from the services of computers acting as servers For example suppose you want to visit my Web site www minasi com Two of the ingredients that you ll need to make that possible are software applications You ll need a computer running a program that knows how to request Web information and then how to receive it in other words a client application TIl need a computer running a program that knows how to listen for requests for Web information and then how to deliver that information in other words a server application As sometimes occurs too often in the computer b
27. really necessary on a pure Windows 2008 network its main job is to support older Microsoft operating systems like Windows 9x Me and NT 3 x and 4 You ll learn more about the specifics of DNS DHCP and WINS in Chapter 11 I should point out that if you re a one person shop then you might not need all of that as your ISP might be Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 12 12 CHAPTER1 WHY NETWORK handling it for you but I m assuming throughout this book that you are probably a network administrator manager for a network of at least a few computers and possibly for a tremendous number of computers A Brief History of Windows Let s finish this chapter with a look at how NT has grown into Windows Server 2008 today Even in the early 1980s Bill Gates knew that networking was a key to owning the computer business So on April 15 1985 Microsoft released its first networking product a tool called MS NET and its companion operating system DOS 3 10 Most people knew about the new DOS and were puzzled at its apparent lack of new features What it contained however were architec tural changes to DOS that made it a bit friendlier to the idea of networks Now Microsoft wasn t big enough at that time to create much hoopla about a new network operating system so it let others sell it no matter how high or low you looked you couldn t buy a product called MS NET Instead it sold mainly as
28. rform better or provide improved capabilities Roles are the pieces of software that define the services that a server provides For example if you want to make your server into a Web server you install the Web Server IIS role Features help your server perform certain tasks better In some cases you must install a feature to make a role work but most features simply add functionality For example if you want to use your Web server to help remote users print documents then you install the Internet Printing Client feature Networks Need Connection Hardware and Links If I want to offer a server service and ensure that you can enjoy that service then we ll both need to be physically attached to the same network the same series of cables satellite links or whatever or your computer s requests will never get to my computer in the first place That probably means that we re both on that huge network of networks called the Internet but we could just be working for the same company in a single wired building or a multilocation firm connected by a private intranet Now notice that if I m going to run a Web server I ll need to be connected to our common network Internet or otherwise persistently I couldn t decide to run a Web server out of my house and just dial in to the Internet now and then Of course if I m only serving some private network that we share then an Internet connection is unnecessary because we already have a
29. roups versions of the administrative tools so network administrators could work from a Workgroup machine rather than an NT machine Where many vendors would spend 13 months adding silly bells and whistles NT 3 5 showed that the Microsoft folks had spent most of their time fine tuning the operating system trimming its memory requirements and speeding it up In October 1995 came NT version 3 51 which mainly brought support for PCMCIA cards a real boon for us traveling instructor types file compression and a raft of bug fixes NT version 4 1996 s edition of NT got a newer Windows 95 like face and a bunch of new features but no really radical networking changes Under the hood NT 4 wasn t much different from NT 3 51 Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 1 14 CHAPTER1 WHY NETWORK From mid 1996 to early 2000 no new versions of NT appeared an upgrade drought such as we d not seen in quite some time from Microsoft Then in February 2000 Windows 2000 NT 5 0 shipped Windows 2000 included a whole lot of new stuff but perhaps the most significant was a new way of storing and organizing user accounts and related information Active Directory AD domains Closely following AD in importance was the then new notion of Group Policy something you ll see has become quite important to anyone wanting to run a network based on XP and Server 2003 The next version of NT shipped in pieces for the first time since 199
30. services Here are a few besides the Web server example File Servers File servers act as central places to store data files Why put them on a server rather than just keep them on your local computer Well in some cases someone else cre ated the file and placing a file on a central server is a simple way to make the files available to others The other good thing about storing files in a central location is that they re more easily backed up that way Server 2008 comes with file server software built in Print Servers Print servers let you share printers Not everyone wants to put a printer on their desk and besides if you share the printers you can afford more expensive and presum ably better models Server 2008 comes with print server software built in Application Servers Application servers provide a method for sharing an application across the Internet In addition you can distribute pieces of the application so that you can use multi ple servers to provide a complete solution Windows Server 2008 provides the software required to create an application server and manage the applications it hosts from a central location This is a new feature for Windows Server 2008 yew W2K8 E mail Servers Mail servers are essential if you re going to do e mail Some computer or computers must act as the post office collecting e mail from the local users and sending it to other mail servers across the Internet and acting as a receiving
31. ta with others on the Internet or to allow employees access to your server from remote locations These are the goals a network is the means or tool to reach them In short the ultimate goal of any networking project is to provide some kind of service Everything else is just a necessary evil but there are a lot of those necessary evils Second networks can provide many kinds of services and every kind of service needs different software to make it work For example suppose you wanted to set up a Web site on the Internet Network services including Web sites need two main pieces a server piece and a client piece To put up that great Web site you ll create the site itself with HTML and drop that HTML onto a Web server One way to get a Web server is by taking one of your computers and putting a piece of software on that computer to make it function as a Web server But that s only half the story in order for your customers to enjoy that Web server s content they will need a piece of client software called a Web browser That s our first networking piece Every network service needs server software and client software Third you need to ensure that there s a way for your information to get from your server to your clients a physical system that the service can travel over If the clients and servers are in the same building then you need only a local area network LAN and setting that up merely requires pulling wires through t
32. tion tasks in the past you ll find that Windows Server 2008 greatly automates the task Microsoft has added functionality that automatically detects your network card and begins the setup process for you as part of the installation In some cases you might not need to do anything with the NIC or associated connections at all except verify that your configuration is correct You don t need to worry about these details now The next chapter shows how to put your network together Chapter 3 reviews Windows security and you ll see how to install Windows Server 2008 in Chapter 4 Well I hope this chapter wasn t boring for those already expert in Windows while bringing the newbies up to speed No matter what version of Windows you re running however you ll need to configure it For example Microsoft can t guess about which resources such as hard drives that you want to share so the new automation can t do everything for you And there are as there always have been two main ways to do it The preferred way is through the GUI with windowed programs that offer help and a bit of error checking or its somewhat more complex relatives the command line tools The less preferred but often necessary way is to directly tweak some setting in its lair a place called the Registry The chapters that follow introduce these two configuration approaches
33. u need this protocol for your company So I m going to assume for our discussion and indeed for most of this book that your network will use TCP IPv4 Oh and one more thing once you ve decided that TCP IP is your network protocol of choice then you ll need to install several more servers to support TCP IP s infrastructure And here again when I say more servers I m not suggesting that you have to buy more PCs although you might What I mean is that you ll have to install software on some computer or group of computers to perform three basic pieces of plumbing or infrastructure jobs A Domain Naming System DNS server keeps track of the names of the computers in your network an important task believe it or not When working with a workgroup you can obtain DNS support automatically without any configuration by using the Internet Con nection Sharing ICS feature of Windows Server 2008 You must install DNS support sepa rately for a domain A Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol DHCP server configures the specifics of TCP IP on each computer in your network both great and small Many routers provide DHCP support so make sure you check your router before you configure this feature on your Windows Server 2008 installation because it may be a redundant service role that your Windows Server can do without A Windows Internet Name Server WINS does something like what DNS does keeps track of names but isn t
34. ure that everyone can communicate Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 7 WHAT S THE POINT OF NETWORKS AND NETWORKING 7 In some cases you install optional hardware to make the network perform certain tasks or to add to the functionality that the network provides When PC networks first came into existence you could find a wide range of distinctly incom patible components Network hardware could use all kinds of odd sounding technologies such as Token Ring and ArcNet Don t worry if these technology names are unfamiliar to you we ll discuss them in more detail as the book progresses For now all you need to know is that they provide a kind of physical connection between computers Today most networks rely on Eth ernet connections and use standard components You might have heard that networks are hard to put together partly because they really were in the past but luckily standardization has made creating a network significantly easier Here are the common pieces of hardware you find on a network Connector For many people the lowly connector isn t even worth mentioning but you sud denly discover the importance of this element when your network is no longer connected and nothing is apparently wrong The typical Ethernet connector looks just like a larger version of the connector for your telephone as shown in Figure 1 1 In fact that s one of the first things you need to avoid mistaking the tw
35. usiness you ve got choices about both the client and the server Minasi c01 tex V3 05 29 2008 9 45pm Page 4 CHAPTER1 WHY NETWORK THE CLIENT PIECE A WEB BROWSER I ve said that first you ll need a computer of course one that s running a Web browser program such as Firefox or Internet Explorer But let me rephrase that in basic network client server terms There is technically no such thing as the World Wide Web Instead there is an agreement about how to transfer text pictures and the like and that agreement is called the HyperText Transfer Protocol which is normally shortened to HTTP The phrase World Wide Web just refers collectively to all of the HTTP servers on the Internet When you think you re surfing a Web page what really happens is this 1 Your client computer asks the Web server oops I meant the HTTP server something like Do you have any documents 2 The Web server responds by saying Here s my default document a simple text file that is the so called home page for that Web server The Web server sends that file to your client using the HTTP protocol 3 Once your client receives the text file it notices that the page is full of references to other files For example if the home page that you requested has pictures on it your Web browser HTTP client didn t originally know to ask for them so the Web server HTTP server didn t send them Your client n
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