The Sambar Server proxy is designed to allow small private networks to share a single connection to the internet. You will need to assign "private" IP address to each of the machines on your LAN, including the gateway machine on which the Sambar Server will be running in order to make use of this (or any other) proxy server. Only your dial-up adapter will have a "public" IP address for communicating with your ISP.

IP Address
You must first configure the TCP/IP properties (via Control Panel -> Network) that are assigned to the network adapter in each machine of your private network. Select the IP address and enter an address in the range 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.255 as the IP address of the machine. Each machine must have a separate IP address in this range. Addresses in this range are reserved for private use only and can only be used for internal LANs. It is recommended that your gateway machine be configured with the address 192.168.0.1 and that your local machines be provided addresses starting at 192.168.0.2 and incrementing by one.

Next, fill in the Subnet Mask with 255.255.255.0.

Select the desired WINS resolution option and leave the Gateway, Bindings and Advanced tabs as they are by default. Note: the Bindings default should be "Client for Microsoft Networks". Lastly, you must configure the DNS (Domain Name Service) for your gateway machine and configure a HOSTS file for each machine on your LAN (including your gateway machine).

DNS Configuration for the Gateway Machine
DNS must be enabled on the gateway machine where the Sambar Server Proxy will be running. Under the DNS tab, enter the host name of the machine (typically www) and the name of your service provider for the Domain (i.e. meer.net). In the DNS Service Search Order section, put the IP address of your service provider's name server. In the Domain Suffix Search Order section, enter the domain suffix (usually the same as the Domain).

Hosts Configuration for LAN Machines
Workstations on your local network will need to setup a HOSTS file in order to communicate with one another using a symbolic name rather than their IP addresses. This is not required, but will make it significantly easier to configure your applications for proxy use.

A HOSTS file acts as a local database, indicating where to go when it's looking for a certain address. On Windows95 OEM 1 Release, the default HOSTS file can be found in the $WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc directory (where $WINDOWS is your Windows installation directory). For Windows95 OEM2 Release, and Windows98, the HOSTS file can be found in the $WINDOWS directory. The following is the default HOSTS file found on each machine (note localhost is a special name reserved for addressing your machine locally).

127.0.0.1 localhost

Edit the HOSTS file and add the addresses and host names for your LAN. The following is a typical configuration for a LAN of 3 workstation machines and a gateway machine.

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.0.1 www
192.168.0.2 zippy
192.168.0.3 pokey
192.168.0.4 fiction

With the above HOSTS configuration file (which should be identical on every machine on your LAN), each machine can communincate using TCP/IP with any other machine using the symbolic name for the machine rather than the IP address. When configuring the proxy server address in Netscape or Microsoft browsers, the machine name www can be specified.

Testing
Once configured (you will need to restart your machines for the network configuration modifications to take effect), you should test that each machine can communicate with the gateway machine on which the Sambar Server Proxy will run.

>From the command prompt, type "ping www" from each of your workstations. If you get a response back, then the TCP/IP connection between your machines is working properly. If you get a "Request timed out" message, or a "Bad IP address" response, your physical connection or configuration is not propery set up.

The following steps can be followed for more detailed troubleshooting:

• Ping the loopback address (127.0.0.1) to verify that TCP/IP was installed and loaded correctly. If this step is unsuccessful, verify the system was restarted after TCP/IP was installed and configured.
• Ping your IP address to verify that it was configured correctly. If this step is unsuccessful, view the configuration using the Network application in the Windows 95/NT Control Panel to verify that the address was entered correctly, and verify that the IP address is valid and that it follows addressing guidelines.
• Ping the IP address of the default gateway to verify that the gateway is functioning and configuring correctly. If this step is unsuccessful, verify that you are using the correct IP address and subnet mask (A JavaScript utility can be used to calculate the appropriate subnet mask for your domain).
• After you can successfully ping the IP address, ping the host name to verify that the name is configured correctly in the HOSTS file. If this is unsuccessful, check the HOSTS file for a valid entry for both the maching being tested and the remote host you are connecting to.