Setting up a new network

kat9182

I have two offices which both need access to the same files. How do I go about setting up a shared drive that all computers in both offices can access. There will be one central 'Sage Accounts' file that I would like to map to this network drive from all machines so that everyone is working off the same version and then just lots of office documents that everyone needs access to.

Any advise would be much appreciated.

vibe666

are both offices in the same location, or do you mean two office in totally seperate places where both have their own internet connection?

if these offices are both connected to the came corporate network it's very simple, (assuming it's using windows XP) just a case of right clicking on a folder and going to properties and then choosing the 'sharing' tab, clicking on 'share this folder' and choosing a name and who should have access with the permissions button or in the security tab.

then you just need to let everyone know where it is which will be in the format of \\computername\sharename and they can just put that into explorer or even the run box to bring it up on their pc.

if you're talking about over the internet then there are LOTS of potential solutions and I'm sure the suggestions will be coming thick and fast soon enough.

Anti

There are many ways to do this, the best is to ask your IT department to do it. As they may have a in house solution for this already.

Anti

vibe666 wrote: »

are both offices in the same location, or do you mean two office in totally seperate places where both have their own internet connection?

if these offices are both connected to the came corporate network it's very simple, (assuming it's using windows XP) just a case of right clicking on a folder and going to properties and then choosing the 'sharing' tab, clicking on 'share this folder' and choosing a name and who should have access with the permissions button or in the security tab.

then you just need to let everyone know where it is which will be in the format of \\computername\sharename and they can just put that into explorer or even the run box to bring it up on their pc.

if you're talking about over the internet then there are LOTS of potential solutions and I'm sure the suggestions will be coming thick and fast soon enough.

Letting users set up their own shares? Thats just asking for trouble. And if the IT department are any decent they should have it locked down so a user cant do this anyway.

Best bet would be to create a group in Active Directory specifically for this share, then let the group policies pull it down on startup and map the drive.

Go speak to the IT department.. Unless you dont have one In that case get one..

kat9182

Thanks for the replies - the two offices are in completely seperate locations and both have internet connections. Im afraid we are just a small business so we dont have an IT Department just yet - I usually just handle all the it issues but unfortunately I havent got much experience setting up networks.

Anti

Right then. To share the folder with the information you need (you can do multiple folders on one pc) Rigth click it and click "share" and make it available to anyone. Now find out the ip of the pc you are sharing, by going to:

1. Start
2. Click on "Run"
3. Type in cmd and press enter
4. Black box will open Type "ipconfig /all"
5. Look for the ipv4 or ip adress. Usually something like 89.213.76.33 and not the 192.168.100.1 or 127.0.0.1 ones.
6. On the pc you want to share the info to you can either map ......

... Wait.. This isnt going to work, your not on a Doman controller and there is no link between the two offices.

Let me see if there is some free software out there that is simple, obviously winscp an sftp is going to be to complicated.

daveharnett

Anti wrote: »

Right then. To share the folder with the information you need (you can do multiple folders on one pc) Rigth click it and click "share" and make it available to anyone. Now find out the ip of the pc you are sharing, by going to:

1. Start
2. Click on "Run"
3. Type in cmd and press enter
4. Black box will open Type "ipconfig /all"
5. Look for the ipv4 or ip adress. Usually something like 89.213.76.33 and not the 192.168.100.1 or 127.0.0.1 ones.
6. On the pc you want to share the info to you can either map ......

... Wait.. This isnt going to work, your not on a Doman controller and there is no link between the two offices.

Let me see if there is some free software out there that is simple, obviously winscp an sftp is going to be to complicated.

Carry on. The two offices both have internet access. That method will work IF the server in question has a real ip address, rather than an internal one.

If not, OP you'll need to look at a vpn solution. A bit of work involved in that, but it'll have to be done sooner or later.

kat9182

If I was to look into a VPN solution, would I be able to map the network as a drive permanently on each machine?

Thanks for the advice!!

vibe666

apology accepted Anti.

i figured if she had an IT department she'd be asking them and not us.

there's plenty of options outside of VPN, but I don't quite have time to look for them right now, friday is always a busy day.

calex71

3rd party hosting of the files could be a simple solution, but this would come with its own set of issues

vibe666

kat9182 wrote: »

If I was to look into a VPN solution, would I be able to map the network as a drive permanently on each machine?

yes you would.

if it's something you have a budget for you could upgrade the modem/routers at both ends to ones that would support a permanent vpn connection so both sites would be permanently connected to each other asif they were in the same office (obviously restricted by the speed of your internet connection).

something like hamachi might be a good free (afaik, it's still free), software based alternative, but it would need to be set up on each client who needs access to the other PC's files.

astrofool

I'd almost look at setting up a machine at one site, and then setting up remote desktop on it for the user at the other site to use. You avoid sharing the account files directly over the internet, and the remote desktop can be locked down to a specific port from a specific IP address, and a specific user.

Sage do provide a distributed setup themselves, but at cost obviously, and it sounds like you're a small operation.

How many users at each site will be using Sage?

kat9182

astrofool wrote: »

Sage do provide a distributed setup themselves, but at cost obviously, and it sounds like you're a small operation.

How many users at each site will be using Sage?

Two on each site...

Ill call Sage about the distributed setup, thanks!

Anti

vibe666 wrote: »

apology accepted Anti.

i figured if she had an IT department she'd be asking them and not us.

there's plenty of options outside of VPN, but I don't quite have time to look for them right now, friday is always a busy day.

You would be supprised the ammount of people in here asking work related IT questions when they have a IT department.

thebyrnie

Hi set up a similar set up in an local office i used hamachi to create the vpn install on each computer create a network i.e joe bloggs accountancy get all the other computers to join this network make sure you have file and printer sharing enable and your firewall allows the hamachi adapter then you will get a seperate ip addres 5.101.25.39 for example then in sage there is a file network lookup file in there you type in the share where the main database is \\5.101.25.39\sharedsagefolder\instant

but running sage accounts over vpn is tricky because when you click somthing sage has to dump the entire section of database on to the local computer which meant it was unbearabley slow the offical word from sage is that sgae accounts and line 50 do not support vpn as below 20Mb/s the database from the remote computer can not refresh different sections quick enough i.e if you go from customer list to invoice list your talking 9-12 mins with sage saying not responding in task manager on a 3mb up line so the best solution i found was to use an accounts package that is sql based thus only the queried information is sent but that is a complete different kettle of fish as i had had to set up a windows 2003 domain server and migrate the network from workgroup to domain but was well worth it in the end

Hope this helps if you would like advice just send me a IM