Setup Network Scenario

How to Set Up a Network Scenario with Zentyal

Introduction

This document is meant to explain where Zentyal should be placed in your network.

There are basically two typical scenarios where Zentyal can be installed.

In the first scenario Zentyal is placed between your router and your local network. In the second one, Zentyal is installed just like any other machine in your network. The latter has some limitations as we explain later.

Scenario 1

In this scenario Zentyal is placed between your router and your local networks. That is, Zentyal will work as your default gateway.

This is the preferred scenario to fully exploit the capabilities of Zentyal.

Use this topology if you plan to do any of the following:

- Transparent proxy
- Content filtering
- Firewalling: protect your local network from external networks 
- NAT
- Traffic shaping
- Multipath routing
- Using OpenVPN to interconnect networks

Image(scenario1.png, bottom)

As you can see, in this scenario you will need at least two network interfaces. Keep in mind that:

 - Every network interface must belong to a different network. 
 - At least one of the interfaces must be marked as external, and  your router must be accessible through this interface.

If you take a glance at the picture you can identify these elements:

- Interface eth0 is an internal interface configured with the IP 192.168.1.254, its network address is 192.168.1.255. The local machines will be connected to this network and will have 192.168.1.x addresses. You must set Zentyal server IP as their default gateway.
- Interface eth1 is an external interface configured with the IP is 10.0.0.254. The router belongs to same network and its IP is 10.0.0.1. Note that you will have to add the gateway trough the web interface.

Scenario 2

In this scenario, Zentyal server is connected to your local network just like any other client machine. This topology limits the working of Zentyal to a few services:

- Samba/PDC
- DHCP
- DNS
- EGroupware
- E-Mail Server - will require special configuration at the router