Because TCP/IP is such a flexible networking tool,
you can customize it to fit the specific needs of your organization.
Consider the major issues in this topic when planning your network.
The details of these issues are discussed in other topics. This list
is intended only to introduce you to the issues.
- Decide which type of network hardware you want to use:
token-ring, Ethernet Version 2, IEEE 802.3, Fiber Distributed Data
Interface (FDDI), Serial Optical Channel (SOC), or Serial Line Interface
Protocol (SLIP).
- Plan the physical layout of the network.
Consider
which functions each host machine will serve. For example, you must
decide which machine or machines will serve as gateways before you
cable the network.
- Decide whether a flat network or a hierarchical network
organization best fits your needs.
If your network is
fairly small, at a single site, and consists of one physical network,
then a flat network probably suits your needs. If your network is
very large or complex with multiple sites or multiple physical networks,
a hierarchical network might be a more efficient network organization
for you.
- If your network is to be connected to other networks, you
must plan how your gateways should be set up and configured.
Things
to consider are:
- Decide which machine or machines will serve as gateways.
- Decide whether you need to use static or dynamic routing, or a
combination of the two. If you choose dynamic routing, decide which
routing daemons each gateway will use in light of the types of communications
protocols you need to support.
- Decide on an addressing scheme.
If your network
will not be part of a larger internetwork, choose the addressing scheme
that best fits your needs. If you want your network to be connected
to a larger internetwork such as the Internet, you will have to obtain
an official set of addresses from your internet service provider (ISP).
- Decide whether your system needs to be divided into subnets.
If so, decide how you will assign subnet masks.
- Decide on a naming scheme. Each machine on the network
needs its own unique host name.
- Decide whether your network needs a name server for name
resolution or if using the /etc/hosts file will
be sufficient.
If you choose to use name servers, consider
the type of name servers you need and how many you need to serve your
network efficiently.
- Decide the types of services you want your network to provide
to remote users; for example, mail services, print services, file
sharing, remote login, remote command execution, and others.