routing problems (experience needed)

[Peter Ulrich Kruppa]

Hi,

I am trying to substitute our school's old Win NT4 Server by a
SAMBA/FreeBSD. The SAMBA PDC itself works like a charm, but
without the NT machine it can't be located from the different
subnets - and so is quite useless.

This is our network design:


                 Internet

                     ^
                     |
              _______+_____
              | DSL Router|  172.16.2.254
              -------+-----
                     |
              _______+____
              |   Switch +--+
              -+-+-+-+-+--  |
_____________  | | | | |    +-----------+
| PROXY FBSD|--+ | | | |                | 172.16.2.1
-------------    | | | | ____________   +_________
172.16.2.11      | | | +-| SAMBA PDC|   | NT4 PDC|
                 | | |   -----------    -------+--
                 | | |   172.16.2.253          |
                 | | |                     172.16.1.1
            different subnets:                 |
             172.16.3.                         |
             172.16.4.                         |
             172.16.5.                     172.16.2.
               etc.                         subnet
             (with routers and          (with switches)
              switches)


As I said: connections between the different subnets break as
soon as the NT4 Server is plugged off.
What can be done:
1) Change all machines to mask 255.255.0.0
   - or would this end up in bad perfomance?
   (We have about 35 workstations all over the house and the
    number is growing)
2) Set up some kind of router (we have got some old P75 left)?
3) Something completely different?

Thanks for all kinds of ideas and hints.

Uli.


	+---------------------------+
	|    Peter Ulrich Kruppa    |
        |         Wuppertal         |
        |          Germany          |
        +---------------------------+