[noRulez43]

Currently, I'm only using one NIC of my sbs 2003 server. This obviously is not the optimal setup seeing as how I have two NICs to use. However, there are some computers that just have no reason to be signing into the server, so my question is this:

If I set up the topology to modem->router->sbs 2003 box->switch->all other computers, will computers that don't sign onto the network be able to access the internet by using the ip address of the server as it's primary DNS?

[teiger]

No. The idea of 2 NICS is to create an RRAS firewall (In standard edition) or add an ISA firewall (In premium edition) Those on the Internal LAN MUST authenticate to SBS . The others could be put outside the SBS domain and access Internet dierctly through the router, but would not belong to the domain and would have nothing to create a policy of when and how to manage passwords. Also each machine would have to have its own accounts manager, so unless you manually synchronised all their users/passwords, you would no longer have a single sign-on for all network resources (and be limited to 10 connections total)

[noRulez43]

I see what you're saying. One port would have to be dedicated for the sbs server fromt he router of course, but the others could be used for any machine wanting to bypass the internal network. What I don't understand is the reference to a limit to 10 connections, etc. Why is that beyond the fact that I'd actually only be able to have as many connections outside the LAN as I have ports on my router (disregarding using switches off that). Thanks for the info Teiger, I appreciate your help.

[teiger]

I am talking about the stations "outside" the SBS connecting to one another. This is a P2P network and XP/W2K/NT stations are limited to 10 connections on that basis.

[noRulez43]

OK, one more question regarding this. I have an iseries server as well. What would be the best way to implement this into the topology? If this were hooked directly into the router, would the machines on the network be able to access that server or should it be hooked up in some other fashion? Thanks again!

[teiger]

Not sure of the details about an iSeries Server but anything in that zone generally can be seen from the SBS. You could make it easier by adding any extra items into your DNS. In other words , if your SBS LAN is 192.168.16.0 and your "external" LAN is 192.168.2.0 with your iSeries being 192.168.2.10, then add that IP into your DNS as iseries.