Making machines invisible to wider network

mothermachine · 29 Jul 2015 at 12:01

Hi folks,

Not sure if this is better in the Windows forum but here goes.

I am moving in to a new office with a mate. We will be provided with an ethernet cable providing internet access. We're going to connect this to our gigabit switch and run all our machines and NAS etc. off this switch.

I am aware of how to prevent access to our machines by using Permissions, which works very well, but I'd ideally like to prevent our machines/NAS etc. from being visible at all to anyone outside our local network on the switch.

I would hope this should be simple but my google fu is failing me. Network Discovery seems to be what I need but it seems to prevent the machine(s) being visible to eachother too, which is not what I want.

I basically want all our local machines on the switch to see eachother but not to be seen by any machines on the other end of that internet cable.

Cheers!

tribz · 29 Jul 2015 at 12:11

Instead of a switch, you could use a cable router and plug your supplied ethernet cable into the wan port and then your devices into the lan ports.

mothermachine · 29 Jul 2015 at 12:13

tribz said:
Instead of a switch, you could use a cable router and plug your supplied ethernet cable into the wan port and then your devices into the lan ports.

That's not a bad idea, actually. but I feel like there should be a simple software solution to this. Something along the lines of making sure that all our machines and devices are on a single workgroup and then disallowing visibility outside that workgroup?

Cheers,

bremen1874 · 29 Jul 2015 at 13:03

The router option is the simplest. One cheap device will give you complete isolation including your own private Wi-Fi. Five minutes to setup and then you can forget about it.

BTW isn't the provided connection already isolated? I'd expect it to be on it's own VLAN unless it's a really amateur setup. The other users on the network aren't going to want visible to you anymore than you do to them.

mothermachine · 29 Jul 2015 at 13:18

Bremen - this is what I'm hoping is the case. I would hope that we'd be isolated, but I do want to make sure. I'm going to set it up this Sunday and then speak with IT on Monday and check.

Sounds like a simple router is a good solution if it's not isolated.

Cheers!

hellarda · 29 Jul 2015 at 19:49

As bremen has said already, I'd imagine your connection would be (or should be!) on a separate VLAN so you should be fine

kitfit1 · 29 Jul 2015 at 20:21

I'm a bit surprised you should even feel the need to ask. It's your business, nothing is more important than protecting your income. Just shell out the stupidly little amount of cash needed and get yourself a router....................................problem solved. No point in assuming that your net connection is protected, take control and MAKE SHURE.

mothermachine · 30 Jul 2015 at 09:38

kitfit1 said:
I'm a bit surprised you should even feel the need to ask. It's your business, nothing is more important than protecting your income. Just shell out the stupidly little amount of cash needed and get yourself a router....................................problem solved. No point in assuming that your net connection is protected, take control and MAKE SHURE.

Well, that's why I was asking in the first place mate... I wanted to find out how best to make sure that we're on an isolated network, hence the post...

I'm going to find out on Monday when we're in if it's isolated or not. If not I now have a couple of options to look at.

kitfit1 · 30 Jul 2015 at 18:09

mothermachine said:
Well, that's why I was asking in the first place mate... I wanted to find out how best to make sure that we're on an isolated network, hence the post...

I'm going to find out on Monday when we're in if it's isolated or not. If not I now have a couple of options to look at.

Even if you are told it is isolated, don't trust it. The ONLY way you know for shure that YOUR network is safe is to put it behind a router that you have full control over.