Adding a New Computer to the Network

Last updated on 15th April 2005 by Buz Barstow.

Any guest computer can use the lab's ethernet network to access the external network. However, it needs to have a permanent entry into the dhcp server's configuration file before the firewall will let it see all of the computers on the network.

• Make sure that the computer has the latest anti-virus software installed and it has the latest security patches.
• Get the MAC address of the ethernet card inside the computer. Under Linux this can be done with ifconfig. Under Windows you can use the command prompt to run ipconfig \all.
• Edit the dhcpd.conf file on the firewall.
  
• Log on to brachyura as root and change to the directory /etc and edit the file dhcpd.conf.
  
• Use the other entries in the file as a template for the new entry.
  
• All new computers are given fake ip addresses sequentially. The latest available number is listed at the top of the file.
• Make sure you increment this number when you are done.
  
• Make sure to restart the dhcp server on brachyura with rcdhcpd -restart.