Do I need a domain based network?

[driv]

Hi guys - real newbie question, hope you don't flame too much here...

I've been using a windows workgroup network for a while now.
I'd had several windows PCs in one building cabled together and working well together.
As I understand it though, a workgroup is limited to the number of PCs that can be connected to it?

So then, I'd like to network some PCs that are located in another building.
Am I correct in thinking that I need a 'domain' based network?

I've just started using Ubuntu Linux and have a server running Apache & MySQL - it seems to be working ok.

Wow - what a difference to the RedHat I used 5 years ago - things have *really* moved on!

Will a domain based network allow my other users to access the network from their remote location?

If anyone has any advice, please help

Many thanks,
d.

[HROAdmin26]

There may be two things you're mixing up - *Windows workgroups vs. Windows domains* and *name resolution via broadcasts (workgroups) or DNS (domain namespace.)*

Using a Windows Domain vs. having a bunch of Windows machines standalone/workgroup is meant to ease user administration and/or allow users to use single accounts when logging into multiple machines.

Name resolution is just that - resolving a network name into an IP address so that the local computer can talk to the remote computer. If you have all Windows machines, then their last resort in finding other machines is to broadcast a request to the local broadcast domain (subnet) and hope the needed machine responds.

If the machines in the other building are not on the same subnet, then the broadcasts from one subnet will not reach the other. (Routers block/don't forward this type of broadcast traffic.) If that is the case, you'll need to add hosts entries to all the machines, or implement a DNS server. (A WINS server is another option, but it's an older solution that's slowly going away.)

A DNS server is also a good idea, since most other OS's don't support Windows broadcasts (usually called NetBIOS broadcasts) anyway (unless you add software to do so - Samba has packages for this.)

HTH.