Planning a LAN
To create a LAN, you need a plan and special hardware to make that plan work. For one thing, each computer will need a device known as a network interface card (NIC) or Ethernet card. You can purchase and install those yourself. Many PCs, however, come with an Ethernet card already installed for connecting to a wired network. In that case, you’ll have an RJ-45 port on the back of the computer. It looks a lot like the plug for a telephone, just a little bigger. You just plug one end of an Ethernet cable into that port, and plug the other end of the cable into a network hub or wall jack. You can also connect computers without any cables at all by using wireless networking hardware. Exactly what you need, in terms of hardware, depends on what you want to do. The rest of this chapter describes your options.
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