Set up LAN intentionally NOT connected to the internet

[rg01]

I need to set up a small LAN intentionally NOT connected to the internet for some web testing.

There will be three computers involved:

* A Web server running the LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. This is running.

* Windows 7 and MacBook (both are working computers) that are to reference the LAMP web server as though it was on the Internet.

Network hardware: have a TRENDnet TW100-S4w1ca 4-Port Broadband Router and a TRENDnet 5-port 10/100 Switch.

How does one set up the IP addresses, or just let the TRENDnet Router handle it via DHCP? I was told the TRENDnet Router would do this. Is that something I need to configure for this to work?

Then, how to access, from both the Windows 7 and Mac computers, web pages on the LAMP computer? Where and how is DNS needed with this?

Need a lot of assistance here please.

Regards,

 

[choucove]

All you will really need to do is set up all the computers running on the switch, no router. On each computer, including the server, you will need to set up a static IP address. When you are filling out the IP addresses, all you need to do is omit the default gateway. After all, you will not actually be going out onto the internet at all, you will only be going back and forth to IP addresses directly connected by your switch.

To get to the server from your client devices, you just use the IP address instead of a domain name since you don't have an internal DNS server to resolve names with.

 

[rg01]

Does that mean the Linux computer points to the client computers and the clients (both) point to the Linux computer?

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The Linux computer indicates the following:
IPv6 (IP Address) ::1, Net mask/Prefix 128, Broadcast is blank, Scope is Host
IPv4 (IP Address) 127.0.0.1,Net mask/Prefix 255.0.0.0, Broadcast is blank, Scope is blank

The network device pull-down has as options: Loop-back Interface (lo), Unknown interface (vibr0), or Ethernet interface (eth0). Which one to select?

-----------------------------------------
On the Windows computer the properties for both IPv4 and IPv6 indicate to automatically. The Windows computer displays the following with ipconfig:

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.10.102
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.10.1

Unfortunately I do not know what to put where.

What to i put in on the Linux computer then what do I put in pn the Windows computer so they talk?

Thank you.

 

[john-b691]

You can use any address blocks you want as long as you get the subnets right.

As a example you could

server 192.168.100.10 mask 255.255.255.0
win7 192.168.100.11 mask 255.255.255.0
mac 192.168.100.12 mask 255.255.255.0
If you don't like those IP you can choose what you want since you are not worried about duplicating real ip on the internet. Manually setting the IP is best when you are running in a test environment where you really want to control things.

On the server of course you would put this on the ethernet not real useful to put it elsewhere.

Pretty much then on the 2 client device you would put http://192.168.100.10/... when you wanted to access it via a browser. To use DNS names pretty much will require you to load a DNS server on your server and then tell your client machines that is where to get the DNS names

 

[ex_bubblehead]

....To use DNS names pretty much will require you to load a DNS server on your server and then tell your client machines that is where to get the DNS names

Nope. A DNS server is way overkill for this situation. Just use a hosts file on each station.

 

[rg01]

Slight confusion.

How does the selection of, let's say, IP 192.168.10.120 on the Linux side.

What do I do with the conf or ini files relative to Mysql, apach2, etc, referring to 127.0.0.1?

 

[john-b691]

The ip only goes on the ethernet adapter. Mostly the reason you use 127.0.0.1 is it always means "this machine" so if you were to change the ip on the ethernet you do not have to change it all over the place. If you were running these apps on different machines you would of course need to put in the ip of the machine where they resided.

 

[rg01]

Best answer selected by rg01.