Important Questions. Options

[Jeff M]

ok well lets see im 16 and im looking for some info about how the internet works and stuff. ive got a cvouple questions i would like answered. i mean who better to ask then a datacenter? and the best datacenter on the planet and of course their fans/customers.

ok well first of all.

1. Im on cable and as of right now i have no stupid linksys router i have a nice pd 3.4 4GB ram server running NAT, dhcp and DNS. i can get multiple WAN ip's assigned to my modem. i am wondering how is it possible for me to assign a WAN IP to computer on my internal network. or to 1 of my computers on an internal network.(maybe not neccessary, this leads me to my next question)

2. When i go to run active directory on my 1 server all the computers not regestered to logon to the domain using CTRL + ALT + DEL don't get an ip or are not allowed to connect to the internet. is it possible for me to have a second server in the network. 1 running DHCP and nat and another running active directory. but then i also wanna put ISA server on one of them to control internet access and block websites and stuff from other computers in my network. How would i set it up so that i can a. have 1 server with active directory dhcp and nat isa and everything and have it also give Internal IP's to the ones that aren't connected to the domain.

3. Again as i said im 16 and i have some questions. Now i have always been wondering things about the internet. as i know when u go to a website it connects to a server bla bla all the basic junk. im wondering again with the router and WAN ip's how it works. i know that a datacenter has a bunch of WAN ip's and it assigns them to the servers. i asked a buddy about this and he said basicly a datacenter has 1 WAN ip and all the customers are "virtual ip's". as i said how does a datacenter assign a customer ip's. and who assigns the datacenter the ip's? also wondering how a datacenter network is setup my buddy says there is a Core router then multiple other routers. and the other routers are virtual. is that true.

4. second to last question. i have crappy a$$ cable. (would be nice to have a t1, but i can't afford). when i do a tracert out of my house it goes like this
Tracing route to havochosting.com [70.85.44.244]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms 22 ms 22 ms 10.1.1.1
2 28 ms 29 ms 27 ms 10.19.0.1
3 7 ms 27 ms 27 ms dstswr1-vlan2.rh.ctmhny.cv.net [167.206.38.33]
4 28 ms 7 ms 30 ms r1-ge0-0-2.mhe.hcvlny.cv.net [167.206.38.1]
5 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms r2-srp0-0.wan.hcvlny.cv.net [65.19.104.195]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 36 ms 35 ms 37 ms r1-pc1.in.asbnva16.cv.net [64.15.0.114]
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 36 ms 35 ms 35 ms so-4-0-0.mpr2.iad2.us.above.net [64.125.30.122]

12 35 ms 35 ms 36 ms so-6-0-0.mpr2.iad5.us.above.net [64.125.27.78]
13 43 ms 36 ms 35 ms so-7-0-0.mpr2.iad1.us.above.net [64.125.28.13]
14 35 ms 35 ms 35 ms so-2-0-0.mpr2.dca2.us.above.net [64.125.28.129]

15 64 ms 41 ms 65 ms so-3-2-0.cr2.dfw2.us.above.net [64.125.28.205]
16 64 ms 63 ms 64 ms 216.200.6.237.theplanet.com [216.200.6.237]
17 46 ms 67 ms 68 ms te9-1.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com [70.87.253.6]

18 67 ms 68 ms 66 ms 72.fd.5746.static.theplanet.com [70.87.253.114]

19 48 ms 67 ms 67 ms po1.car19.dllstx2.theplanet.com [12.96.160.4]
20 69 ms 67 ms 67 ms f4.2c.5546.static.theplanet.com [70.85.44.244]

Trace complete.

ok now to my questions. i see that when i tracert out it goes to a WAN.bla.cv.net does that mean that i have a virtual ip?. also why am i "bounced" around optimum onlines servers? i go thourhg like 5 and those aren't the ip's to the DNS servers they gave me. are they nodes?
now when i go into the planet i go through multiple routers? also where does the 12.96.160.4 ip come from? it doesn't have anything to do with the 70's. also havochosting.com is that long thing .static.theplanet.com why wouldn't it be havochosting.com? basicly thats like my cable modem being assigned an ip from opt. i have whatever.dyn.optonline.net. what controls the __.dyn.optonline.net and as i asked what assigns my modem a external ip and how can i assign a computer within my network a external ip.

5. what in de hell is a node. and what does it do. cause i have no clue and it would be nice to know.

thx in advance.

[James Jhurani]

1. If you are behind a NAT, you will only show 1 ip to the world. Regardless of how many internal ips you have. I personally have road runner cable, with the basic plan, they would hunt me down and kill me if I claimed more than one ip. However I am not sure if business class is different. I have never herd of cable companies providing multiple ips, although I could be wrong.

2. i will leave this for someone else to answer. (its late, and my brain hurts)

3. Your buddy is a little off. A datacenter buys a bunch of ip ranges. Then as the customer needs them, they are assigned. This can be done multple ways. The Dallas DC's use VLAN's to control which ips are used. The ip is assigned to the VLAN, and the customer is then able to bind the ip to their server. But in the end, the customers can try and bind any ip address they want. If the ip address is assigned to their router/VLAN, the ip address will become bound to the server. If not, then it won't affect anything. However problems are caused when people bind ips that are not assigned to them to their server. This causes what is known as an ip conflict. This is when two servers are swapping the ip address back and forth.

I have no idea what your friend is referring to as "virtual ips", maybe alias' on the eth device? but they are still real legitimate ips.

As for the setup, your friend is referring to the traditional setup of edge routers -> then creating subnets off the edge routers as needed. There are many newer, and more optimal ways of doing this.

The best thing I can recommend is reading this entire article: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/lan-switch.htm


4. You mentioned you were behind a linksys router, now by default the linksys subnet is 192.168.*.*, unless this was changed to 10.*, then your isp has you on an intranet. In other words, you are hidden behind their routers, and your ip is an internal ip address(maybe this is what you are calling a virtual ip). This is good and bad, good for the isp, because it prevents the users from running services like httpd, and it also is a fairly decent attempt at preventing WAN based attacks. Bad for the user, because you are not completely free to run what you want.

You are traversing out of your isp's routers, which is why you spend so much time in cv.net. Remember as we mentioned earlier, there is a router, then routers under that, and so forth? well to get data out, we now must traverse outward!

The same thing happens when you get to the planet. You hit the edge routers, then travel from router to router ultimately reaching your goal. The 12.* ip address is simply another router/vlan. Since the dallas dc's use VLAN's they are free to mix and match ip addresses(to some degree).

The reason you see f4.2c.5546.static.theplanet.com instead of havochosting, is because the owner did not have the Reverse DNS changed. So the default reverse DNS is f4.2c.5546.static.theplanet.com. This can easily be changed by contacting the owner of the ip range (the planet via trouble ticket). In your case, your isp, however most cable companies will not change it.

To assign an external ip address to a computer inside your network, you first need to contact your isp, and make sure you are allowed to get extra ips. Otherwise, you will only be assigning internal ip addresses, which will do you no good once it leaves your router.

5. I believe you are referring to a hop. A hop is what you pasted in the tracert(Trace Route). It traces the route, or hops it must pass the data to, in order to get to your target.
To go a little further into detail, the data is passed from you, to your router, to the multiple hops on your isp, then to the hops for the internet backbone above.net, then to the planet's hops, and finally your destination.

Hopefully I covered everything!

[Jeff M]

ok thx for the info. and actually im not behind a linksys router. im behind a server running windows server 2003 in my house(server is running nat, DNS, and DHCP). and about getting extra ip's they said its capable and i was going to get like 5 and assign 4 to my server(which is running ftp and apache) so i could have a couple ip's for hosting and so that i could assign my computer(which is behind the server) an public ip. so it can be seen by the outside world and will also be in my network. and im going to install server 2003 on my comp and proboly run another web server. seeing as im startin a web company and im dead broke. plus i wanna host my own stuff.

[James Jhurani]

ok thx for the info. and actually im not behind a linksys router. im behind a server running windows server 2003 in my house(server is running nat, DNS, and DHCP).

Sorry I missed the "no" in "i have no stupid linksys router". It was late!

and about getting extra ip's they said its capable and i was going to get like 5 and assign 4 to my server(which is running ftp and apache) so i could have a couple ip's for hosting and so that i could assign my computer(which is behind the server) an public ip. so it can be seen by the outside world and will also be in my network. and im going to install server 2003 on my comp and proboly run another web server. seeing as im startin a web company and im dead broke. plus i wanna host my own stuff.

Thats awesome that you have such an oppertunity! When I was ~15 I wanted to do the same thing. I wrote my ISP a long email explaining everything in a very professional manner, they simply replied with "no". Seriously...

Good luck with everything!

[Jeff M]

hey i got another question.
if i install active directory on the server not running dhcp and nat & dns. then register the computer running nat and dhcp and stuff into the domain. then any computer not in the domain doesn't gat an ip from the server and nothing gets assigned to it. if i unregister the computer running dns and dhcp then it works fine. i mean i want to register a couple more computers with the domain because i can set permissions so that my little bro and sis wonder screw up their computers.(im getting tired of reformatting each one one a week) any ideas? i mean i can't register my moms works computer with the domain. (cause she has to upload files via VPN every day). and i don't want to register my parents laptops. but as i said if they aren't in the domain it won't get an ip from the server.

EDIT:::: i asked my buddy again.
in his words "because you have the localhost on the server set tothe domain, u need to set the localhost to 127.0.01" question is i have no idea what that means and no idea how to do it.