ML110 Wireless Server Config

[Lawrence Newhook]

I have a ML110 server running Windows Small Bus Server 2003 for a home office and want to configure it to act as the server for two wireless clients (and 1 remote VPN client). Do I need to just buy a wireless adapter network card for the server (clients already have wireless cards)? Would I just plug the network from my cable modem into the Gigabit NIC and then have my server act as a wireless DHCP server? Or, should I connect a wireless router in between my cable modem and server, and then let the router act as the DHCP server? Does the fact the SBS 2003 limitation that the SBS server be the Primary Domain Controller and root of forest cause an issue? Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

[Ernest Ford]

I believe either way can work, but my preference would be to use a wireless router between the cable modem and the server, mainly for the additional protection of the firewall. I would also disable DHCP in the router and have the SBS server handle DHCP/DNS & DC, although a domain controller is not strictly necessary on a network that small.

[Matt Hobbs]

If you add a wireless NIC to the server, you create an 'ad-hoc' network with the other devices. The main disadvantage with ad-hoc wireless is that it's limited to 11Mbit only, and supports only WEP encryption.

With an access point or wireless router, you will get 54Mbit performance, plus much better encryption like WPA2.