Hosting Files internally on a School LAN

Scobie Doo

Hi,
Hope this is the right place to ask this question.
I'm a teacher in a primary school and our PC's all running XP, are networked though we don't have a central server.
What I'd like to do is create a web page with links to important documents. policies etc. that could be accessed "internally only" through typing in something simple like "schooldocs" from any browser on any PC on our LAN. I have a NAS drive with a simple webserver on the device but it has only got a Dynamic IP address. I have no control over the assignment of IP addresses as this is done externally. There is one port on the Cisco router I can access that has a static IP address but I've no idea how to connect the NAS device to it, as in how to configure it.
Any ideas would be appreciated and apologies for any "dumb statements above" but I'm not an IT specialist but more used to dealing with "3+3=12" and whatever remediation is required afterwards

Static M.e.

Scobie,

First off you shouldn't have to connect the NAS to the router to get a static Ip, Im quite sure the NAS could be configured to take any static IP. What you could do is simply take its current DHCP address and assign it as a static IP.

Most/all NAS can be accessed via a webpage find out your NAS's webpage and you can configure it all from that. If you cant find it out Post all the details of the NAS here and I will tell you.

Once you have that done, all you have to do is create the webpage with all the links and host it.

If you run into any trouble post here and I will do my best to answer. You can always PM me if you are worried about something.

Scobie Doo

Thanks Static M.e.
I'll try that later today and i'll let you know how I get on.
The reason I didn't try that was that I thought that if the NAS has a static IP and is turned off for whatever reason (people are always plugging out stuff in schools, very few sockets in old buildings) that it would cause problems if another PC is assigned that IP address by the router.
Scobie

arseagon

Scoobie, the way school networks are set up under the broadband initiative is that anything on the network is assigned a public IP by the DHCP server on the Cisco. Why they do this is beyond me. Would it not be better to have the internal network on private addresses and just give each school a few Public IP's in case they want to run web/mail servers. It'd be less waste of public addresses.

Nevertheless that's the way it's set up so:
The cisco has a range of addresses that are to be assigned to network devices. There are also IP's that are not DHCP assignable to be used on your network as static addresses. If you contact the helpdesk with your schools roll number they should be able to tell you what these IP's are. Careful though, some of these are set to be publically accessable as web servers so if you only want data available within the school make sure you don't use these ones. Again the helpdesk should be able to tell you what's what.

mastermind2005

Ok personally, id forget about the nas... create a share on one pc (what ever suits yourself) host the html file there and then on all the other pcs map the network drive and thats it, static or dhcp ips, dns will look after that area.

users can goto my computer and they will have a new drive like z: so they can go directly into your document and also see anything else youve published

another thing that would make it handy for the users would be if you named hosting pc the name of the document and so then they can goto run type....\\documentname and it would open the hosts folder

another handy little thing you could setup, create a standard backround for every pc in the school say a standard colour with text describing your new page in the bottom left corner and how to get to it.

They dont call me mastermind for nothing

Scobie Doo

Ok, thanks for all your responses and advice.
I need to keep this as simple as possible. You are dealing with very very basic users. If it was for the kids the mapped drives would probably be fine but the teachers are a different story. Don't get me wrong, you won't get a better bunch of teachers but ICT is not their forte or interest.
To give an example, I saw our most ICT literate teacher retyping a ten page document with some intricate formatting (that was on her laptop) on another PC on our network because the ink had run out on her printer and she needed it urgently. The laptop was connected to the network!

The simple web interface with links to documents seems the most straight forward as they are all used to using the web.

Question?
So to configure the NAS to a static IP do I assign it one of the static (private) IP address that are available to me and then plug it into whichever of the ports on the Cisco has been assigned that static IP and if so is there anything else I need to do?

arseagon

The ports on the Cisco are not assigned their own static IP's. You should be able to just assign the IP to the NAS and plug it into the school network at the location of your choice.

Static M.e.

Question?
So to configure the NAS to a static IP do I assign it one of the static (private) IP address that are available to me and then plug it into whichever of the ports on the Cisco has been assigned that static IP and if so is there anything else I need to do?

Yes just take any DHCP give address and assign it as a static IP. Its bad practice generally to do it because as you said some other PC could take that address but for your situation its fine. If another pc takes the address a quick reboot or /ipconfig/release will fix the issue. I wouldn't worry about it.

I might be able to get you an old PC if that would help. You could run Apache/linux off it or Microsoft IIS server.. whatever suits. You might need someone to set it up but it wouldn't be a big job at all. Could probably do it over the phone. You would have the same issues though, ie need to assign it a static ip.

But generally I think what your doing is fine. You dont need to attach it directly to the router though, Im quite sure you could simply plug it into any network point in the school.

Where are you based?

Scobie Doo

I think I have it sorted out. I realized(as some of you have already pointed out) that you don't have to connect it to the router so I have assigned it one of the reserved Static IP addresses and it seems to be working fine. I enabled the Web server and threw in an test index.html and I changed the name of the device to "myschoolname" so you can type in name from any browser address bar and it opens the page.
Just need to check I can't access it from outside school. I think I have to request access from NCTE for this to happen so should be ok.

Question?
I presume to check it from outside I just have to type the IP address I have assigned into a browser. Is this correct or am I missing something?

Thanks for all the help everyone and offers of PCs(Static-Hopefully the NAS will be enough but thanks for offering anyway) etc. It is greatly appreciated.

cython

Scobie Doo wrote:

Question?
I presume to check it from outside I just have to type the IP address I have assigned into a browser. Is this correct or am I missing something?

Are you referring to the IP address that you assigned the NAS on the internal network? If so, then the answer is no, because that IP is strictly internal. Basically, for the NAS to be accessible from outside, you would have to have assigned it an address that is mapped to from one of the school's external IPs. I am not sure how to check what external IPs the school has, or where they are mapped too, but it's a fairly safe bet that the NAS will not be accessible from outside using the internal IP address that you assigned it.

I suppose what you could do is disconnect the NAS temporarily, and get a PC on the network and assign it the same static IP address. Once you have done that, would need to go to something like www.whatismyip.com, and record the IP you are given there. Next, you reconnect the NAS on the same IP, with the PC now removed/readdressed, and see if you can get in on the public IP you got off whatismyip.com.

There may be an easier/shorter way that I am not aware of, but that would be how I'd try in the absence of more in depth knowledge.

mastermind2005

With a pc on the same subnet as ur nas goto whatismyip.com thats your wan ip, then on your router setup a virtual server with the port set to 80 and point it to the local ip of the nas, also configure your firewall(s) open on port 80 for the nas, then from a pc or laptop not on the same network ping the wan ip it should work, then yea might wanna register a domain and point it to that ip address and thats it.....:rolleyes:

Static M.e.

As previously mentioned. No you should be fine, you wont be able to access the webserver from the web, Im quite sure you have Router + Firewall in place to stop all the nasties.

Scobie Doo

Static M.e. wrote:

As previously mentioned. No you should be fine, you wont be able to access the webserver from the web, Im quite sure you have Router + Firewall in place to stop all the nasties.

Yes thanks Static, before we get confused I don't want it accessible from outside, just to know that it's not. I'll ring NCTE and tell them the IP address I've assigned and they should be able to tell me whether it's acessible or not and if it is I'm sure they can sort it out at their end as I have no access to the router other than plugging in and out cables and turning it on and off.

I think that should be everything.
Thanks again everyone. At least when I ring the NCTE I will have some understanding of what I'm talking about!