2008

Before continuing, be sure that:
■ You have administrative privileges on each machine.
■ The network is operational, with network adapter cards installed in each
machine.
The TCP/IP protocol requires a device, called a network adapter or Network
Interface Controller (NIC), to bind with in order to communicate with other
machines. Typically, the network adapter is a network card, but if you are
linked to the Internet by modem, a dial-up adapter (the modem) is used.
TCP/IP uses IP addresses to identify the computers on a network. For
convenience, you can assign real names to computers. An IP address is a serial
number of four integers separated by periods, for example, 192.100.100.1.
IP addresses can be fixed (as in the example above) or automatic, supplied
dynamically each time you connect to the network by a system known as
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).
The software uses the NIC number, which can be thought of a unique serial
number assigned to each network card, to identify each machine in the
network. This allows the use of DHCP since the IP address usually changes
when a machine using DHCP is rebooted.
In some cases, you may want to specify a fixed IP address, for example:
■ When you have more than one Manager running on the same network,
each with its own set of dedicated Servers, you need to specify which
Manager to use. DHCP can be used in this case, but you will have to specify
the Manager name instead of its IP address.
■ The second case is when the Server or Queue Monitor is outside the local
network (as in the case of a WAN or a multi-segmented network connected
through a router). In this case, Servers connected to the same network can
still use DHCP, provided the Manager has a fixed name and IP address.
■ If your network is set peer-to-peer without an NT server (as is the case with
most home networks), it is easier to set the machines with permanent,
fixed IP addresses.
■ Finally, you can use
batch rendering on page 6347 without being connected
to a network. In that case, you will need to set up a fixed TCP/IP address
and configure the Microsoft Loopback adapter.
In the case of fixed addresses, it is important that IP addresses be properly
assigned. In this step, you make up a list of machine names and their
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