Netopia R5000 manual Chapter Connecting to Your Local Area Network

Connecting to Your Local Area Network 4-1

Chapter 4

Connecting to Your Local Area Network

This chapter describes how to physically connect the Netopia R5000 Series to your local area network (LAN). Before you proceed, make sure the Netopia R5000 Series is properly configured. You can customize the router’s configuration for your particular LAN requirements using console-based management (see “Console-BasedManagement” on page 6-1).

This section covers the following topics:

■“Overview” on page 4-1

■“Readying computers on your local network” on page 4-1

■“Connecting to an Ethernet network” on page 4-3

■“Adding an external modem” on page 4-4

■“Connecting to a LocalTalk network” on page 4-5

Overview

You can connect the Netopia R5000 Series to an IP or IPX network that uses Ethernet.

If you have purchased the AppleTalk feature expansion kit, you can also connect the router to a LocalTalk network that uses PhoneNET cabling.

Additionally, on the R5200 and R5300 models you can connect an external modem for remote management. See “Adding an external modem” on page 4-4.

Caution!

Before connecting the Netopia R5000 Series to any AppleTalk LANs that contain other AppleTalk routers, you should read “Routers and seeding” on page 11-3.

See the later sections in this chapter for details on how to connect the Netopia R5000 Series to different types of networks.

Readying computers on your local network

PC and Macintosh computers must have certain components installed before they can communicate through the Netopia R5000 Series. The following illustration shows the minimal requirements for a typical PC or Macintosh computer.