Sam
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This feels like such a n00b question on my part but what the hell, here goes...
A couple of buildings are connected to each other via fibre, and in each building is a fast ethernet connection to each office.
Can I simply install a normal 10/100 auto sensing switch in one office with the 'WAN' cable going into the uplink port of the switch if you see what I mean?
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willay
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if its just fibre between the buildings presented via rj45/ethernet and you know its a simple layer2 service (theres no routing in there or anything) then yes you could link up some switches on the WAN port side of things.
If there are no current setup in the buildings then you can both use the same network addressing and it could just work.
What exactly are you trying to achieve here
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Sam
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The buildings in question (well the networking/Internet in them anyway) are managed by some company.
This one particular office uses an 11 year old SMC router which is physically faulty as they said it keeps coming up with frame errors and the port keeps flapping etc. so they suggested that rather than get my customer to buy a new router, they could simply sort out the DHCP for their office (including static LAN IPs for certain things like printers) from their end, and that all I'd need to do is simply connect their RJ45 cable into a switch.
They also said that the office will have a static WAN IP - similar to with broadband Internet I guess so that'll be good for remote access purposes and all that good stuff.
Sorry if I'm sounding a bit thick, it's been about 10 or so years since I got involved in networking of such scales and configurations 
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willay
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how many PCs in the lan?
So the other building, is it a company? (the one that doesnt have the dodgy router)
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willay
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wait a minute, they have a router at the moment that does the WAN connection to the other building?
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Sam
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Basically the building (and the other building) have offices let out to different people/businesses etc.
Yeah the guy said to me the two ways it works is either each office has a router where they are given a WAN IP with DNS addresses and they allocate their own internal LAN IPs, or each office can simply be part of this bigger network and 'it' allocates IPs via DHCP itself.
This is the router they have at the moment.
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Sam
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To quote what he said in an email to me:
"There isn’t a broadband service as the estate network is Fastethernet with fibre optic between buildings"
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willay
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yeah ok, so basically your network will be flat until it gets to their end and it hits the router.
You basically remove the router, set all the devices to DHCP (you might agree to setup some boxes as static) - set your default gateway to the IP of their router (for the static ones that is!) and thats it. Just plug a cat5 cable between the WAN port of your switch and however the fibre link is presented 
Because their router will feed your network DHCP requests, they will all point to that router for its default gateway and they can take care of the routing to the Internet, you need never know!
The problem with this kinda of setup is if they firewall outgoing ports (which you will have to request for them to open) and the same when it comes to port forwards for remote access? Also means you ring them if the internet goes doo lally
[Edited on 12-06-2012 by willay]
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Sam
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Cool, so I don't need to install some funky switch just a bog standard 10/100 will do I take it?
That's a good point you've raised about the ports. I use this software called CrossLoop for remote access to PCs so it doesn't technically need a dedicated port open like with remote desktop for example.
I will need them to open up a port for the NAS box though so that they can access it from home if they need to.
The net setup seems quite good there I think, they actually have someone on-site all the time for any network or Internet issues which is great.
Because of these current framing errors etc. they only have about 1Mb Internet at the moment when it should be about 20Mb each way 
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Sam
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quote:
Originally posted by willay
Just plug a cat5 cable between the WAN port of your switch and however the fibre link is presented
There's a CAT5 cable (the WAN cable if you like) that goes into their office from somewhere in the building so I'll just stick that into the switch.
[Edited on 12-06-2012 by Sam]
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willay
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are you sure its the router and not the link?
You could always use LogMeIn for remote access, its quite snazy and doesnt need ports opened up, from there they could access their workstations then browse onto the NAS.
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Sam
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He said from his log files he can see about 26 different MAC addresses on that port instead of 1, and with the frame errors and 'port flapping' he says it's the router.
It is quite an old router (11 years old) and I have actually had to replace a dead switch of a similar age in their office fairly recently so I think his assumption is probably correct going by that basis.
CrossLoop is the same as LogMeIn but cheaper (don't need to pay for each different system you connect to, you just pay the one license).
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willay
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yeah 11 years is taking the piss
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Sam
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Cheers for the help Will 
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willay
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anytime
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