Integrated Products
Although all of the devices mentioned above are available as separate products on the market today, most products that you will actually buy and use in your home combine one or more of these devices. As already mentioned, most consumer grade routers incorporate a 4-port switch. In fact, this is so common that many people make the mistake of thinking that the purpose of a router is solely to connect multiple computers together, or that if you outgrow the 4 ports that are included you must purchase another router if you outgrow those 4 ports. Both of these ideas are incorrect. If you need more ports than the amount included with a router, just plug a switch into one of the ports. Another example of an integrated product already mentioned is a wireless router, which is really a combination of a router (which includes a switch) and a basic wireless access point. There are also products on the market that incorporate a router and modem into the same package. The devices are usually called “gateways” and are more commonly provided by an ISP than found on a store shelf.
What should you buy for your home network? The answer to that question depends on how large and how flexible your network needs to be. I like to tinker with old computers, so I have made my own router out of an old computer and a specialized version of Linux. My router has one network card to connect to my cable modem, and only one other card to connect to a switch. Because of this, my home network consists of a cable modem, connected to the router, which connects to a switch, which then connects to all of my computers. If I wanted to incorporate wireless access into my network, I would connect a wireless access point to the switch. I do not imagine most people build routers out of old computers, so the typical home network that has an internet connection and a few computers would just consist of a cable or DSL modem, connected to a router, which all the computers would connect to. A basic network could be created by using a “gateway” product provided by an ISP, which would be the only networking device necessary besides the computers themselves. Lastly, if there is only one computer, it is possible to connect a cable or DSL modem directly to the computer, although I would not advise this for security reasons. Don’t forget to pick up plenty of Ethernet cable for any wired part of the network. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s end this by looking at a few diagrams to clarify some basic network setups.
A diagram of my home network | A home network with a typical consumer/off-the-shelf router | A diagram of a simpler network, using an integrated “gateway” product | A diagram showing a very simply network, consisting of just a modem and one computer |
Recommended Parts
Even if you walk into the store knowing exactly what type of equipment you need to buy, you still have to wade through more confusion because of the large variety of brands and models available. From my own experience and countless hours surfing the PC Mech Networking Forum, the best advice is to stick with Linksys products for routers, Linksys, D-Link, or Netgear for switches, and 3Com or Intel for high quality network cards. If you’re buying a cable modem, Motorola tends to make very high quality units, though modems are usually provided by your ISP. An excellent wireless 802.11g router is the Linksys WRT54G-L. As mentioned earlier, wireless equipment that offers speeds faster than that of 802.11g does exist, but it requires you to purchase matching wireless network cards with your router. For an extensive database of actual performance numbers for many routers, check out the Router Charts over at Tom’s Hardware.
Setting It All Up
Now that you have all the parts you need, how do we get everything working properly? Thankfully, modern networking equipment makes configuration very easy. Install any network cards you need in each computer just like any other expansion card, and be sure to install drivers for them. Often Windows will have built-in drivers that will work, but the ones from the manufacturer can offer better performance and more control. After that, simply connect all your computers to the router (or switch if you prefer more complicated networks like me) and your nearly ready to go. The only thing to be careful of is that you connect your modem to the WAN (Wide Area Network) port of your router, and your computers or switches to the LAN (Local Area Network) ports. After that all that remains is to configure your router. Most routers are configured using a webpage, so just open a browser and enter the IP address of the router, often 192.168.1.1 You can find out for sure what this address is simply by looking at the default gateway in the network settings of your computer. Joel has given us an article explaining what all the common settings are, and more detailed information about any particular router is available in the manual that comes with it, or from the manufacturer. Configuration is especially important with wireless routers to prevent others from casually accessing your network and internet connection. The two most important steps to wireless security and disabling SSID broadcast so that your router is not constantly inviting connections, and turning on some type of wireless encryption, either WEP (Wired Equivalent Protection) or WPA/WPA2 (WiFi Protected Access). Of the 2 types, WPA and the slightly more recent WPA2 are much more secure than WEP, but anything at all is a vast improvement from a completely open network. For more help securing your wireless network, take a look at one or our new Wireless Security video.
Further Reading
For anyone interested in the details of how Ethernet works, I would suggest taking at look at Timo’s article, Tech In-Depth: Ethernet. If you are interested in making your own router out of an old computer, Ryan has an excellent article about SmoothWall Express 2.0, the software that allows you to do this. Lastly, for any specific questions, feel free to make a post in our Networking Forum. We’ll be glad to help.
Conclusion
I hope this description of the elements of a home network has been helpful. Adding a network to one’s home is becoming more common every day, and it can be a confusing world for consumers out there. The best advice before going to the store is to think about how many computers you will be connecting together, and what capabilities you need from your network. Drawing a simple diagram can help as well. Then you can decide what products you need to get instead of letting a salesman talk you in to buying something you neither want nor need.
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