Bridging two workgroups

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason Roberts
  • Start date Start date
J

Jason Roberts

I work in a small radio station and have two workgroups,
one for business and one for our studios. I have always
kept these two workgroups separate for the protection of
the studio system; it would be disastrous for us if that
system were to become infected or hacked.

The business workgroup is connected to our DSL line. On
this system we receive audio files which need to be
placed on our studio workgroup. Right now we download the
file, burn it to a disc, and walk it to the other
computer. I want to make this process less cumbersome
without jeopardizing the security of our studio workgroup.

I guess what I'm looking for is not a true bridge, not a
way to allow every computer on one workgroup to access
every computer on the other, but a way to let one
computer have enough access to both groups that it can
download files using the access of the business group and
then make those files available to the studio group. I do
use antivirus and firewall software on that PC. I have
additional NICs at my disposal.

Any suggestions?
 
We have a similar setup. Just make sure all of the
computers in both workgroups have a similar IP range and
the same subnet mask. We use 192.168.0.1 to
192.168.0.200 with the subnet mask at 255.255.255.0 If
your are using DHCP, make sure your dhcp server uses the
same range for both workgroups. I would suggest
assigning IP addresses to each computer rather than DHCP.

Rb
 
-----Original Message-----
I work in a small radio station and have two workgroups,
one for business and one for our studios. I have always
kept these two workgroups separate for the protection of
the studio system; it would be disastrous for us if that
system were to become infected or hacked.

The business workgroup is connected to our DSL line. On
this system we receive audio files which need to be
placed on our studio workgroup. Right now we download the
file, burn it to a disc, and walk it to the other
computer. I want to make this process less cumbersome
without jeopardizing the security of our studio workgroup.

I guess what I'm looking for is not a true bridge, not a
way to allow every computer on one workgroup to access
every computer on the other, but a way to let one
computer have enough access to both groups that it can
download files using the access of the business group and
then make those files available to the studio group. I do
use antivirus and firewall software on that PC. I have
additional NICs at my disposal.

Any suggestions?

My suggestions is that you equiped two machine with two
NIC Adapter and then assign each one to the indivicual
workgroup then create another workgroup and place the two
machines on it, I guess it will work
 
Jason Roberts said:
I work in a small radio station and have two workgroups,
one for business and one for our studios. I have always
kept these two workgroups separate for the protection of
the studio system; it would be disastrous for us if that
system were to become infected or hacked.

The business workgroup is connected to our DSL line. On
this system we receive audio files which need to be
placed on our studio workgroup. Right now we download the
file, burn it to a disc, and walk it to the other
computer. I want to make this process less cumbersome
without jeopardizing the security of our studio workgroup.

I guess what I'm looking for is not a true bridge, not a
way to allow every computer on one workgroup to access
every computer on the other, but a way to let one
computer have enough access to both groups that it can
download files using the access of the business group and
then make those files available to the studio group. I do
use antivirus and firewall software on that PC. I have
additional NICs at my disposal.

Jason,

my proposal would be to do it right, join the two networks, and
make sure you're well protected. Use a router with a good
firewall. Even a very cheap one, like the SMC 7004 VBR, is well
good enough for this purpose. It is not too easy for somebody to
link through from the outside. Train your employees not to
install potentially dangerous software. Train them to say no
when their browser or mail program asks them whether to install
some software module. Turn up browser security.

Or are you worried about an internal user hacking one network
from the other? That would be a more difficult question.

Hans-Georg
 
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