I am a networking novice. I have never set up a network before. Right now, I'm trying to set up a basic network for my unRAID machine. The hardware consists of a switch and several Ethernet patch cables. After plugging everything in, typing //tower does not work. Since I don't have a DHCP server on my network (it isn't connected to the outside world in any way), I tried setting a static IP address. Neither typing //tower nor typing //[iP Address] works.

 

Any help you could provide would be much appreciated!

I am a networking novice. I have never set up a network before. Right now, I'm trying to set up a basic network for my unRAID machine. The hardware consists of a switch and several Ethernet patch cables. After plugging everything in, typing //tower does not work. Since I don't have a DHCP server on my network (it isn't connected to the outside world in any way), I tried setting a static IP address. Neither typing //tower nor typing //[iP Address] works.

 

Any help you could provide would be much appreciated!

You are correct... a "switch" does not convert a "name" to an IP address.  That would normally be done by the "router"

 

You can teach your PC how to translate //tower to an IP address by adding a line in its "hosts" file.

 

as far as //IP address.  That should work if the IP address was set properly.  To see the IP address in unRAID type

ifconfig eth0

It will look like this (your IP address will be in the spot labeled as inet addr):

root@Tower:/# ifconfig eth0

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:11:75:fb:7e

          inet addr:192.168.2.100  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:30304295 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:70035037 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

          RX bytes:408326638 (389.4 MiB)  TX bytes:2437872761 (2.2 GiB)

 

You don't have to talk to the outside world to have a router.  Just think of it as an information booth for all the machines on the network.

 

Grab a Linksys WRT-54GL and a replacement firmware and stuff will just magically work. (and you can lock stuff down as much as your paranoid little heart feels is necessary.)

What IP address and mask did you assign the unRAID and what IP address and mask are you trying to connect from? They need to be on the same subnet if you're just using a switch.

Since I was already planning on getting a wireless router for the machine in the future, I think I'll be going that route. Since I already have a gigabit switch, is it necessary to also buy a gigabit router?

Since I was already planning on getting a wireless router for the machine in the future, I think I'll be going that route. Since I already have a gigabit switch, is it necessary to also buy a gigabit router?

No. It is not necessary at all to have a gigabyte router if you have a gigabyte switch.  It is just that any connection that passes through the router will not get gigabyte speed. (wireless will never get that speed, and other ports located on the non-gigabyte router router can be connected to non-gigabyte devices on your lan)    It is exactly how I have my LAN set up in my house.

 

It will still be able to handle the assignment of IP addresses, and routing of packets between the devices on the LAN.

Awesome. In that case, I'll be getting this router.