Wireless/Wired networking problems

Here's my current situation.

About 18 months ago, my work supplied me with a Linksys BEFSX41 Router for
security when working from home. I got that setup and working fine and was
able to connect two PCs at home and share files across them as well as
getting VPN going.

A co-worker had showed me how to setup Remote Desktop from work to connect
to my home computer (using dyn-ip.org) but after doing everything he said I
was never able to get it to work.

4 months ago I got my wife a laptop. I went out and bought a Linksys
WRT54G Router and replaced the BEFSX41 with it. My existing home network
was fine, but I was unable to get filesharing going between the two
computers. With all firewalls turned off I was able at the following
state:
Neither computer could see each other in the workgroup
The LAN PC could ping the laptop
The laptop could not ping the LAN PC
Using the IP address I could browse the laptops files
The WRT54G has a diagnostic Ping function. From it I could ping the
laptop, the router itself but could not ping the PC.

When I physically hooked the laptop up to the Router everything was fine.
The laptop showed in the workgroup and file sharing worked great. Because
of this I had the idea of putting the BEFSX41 back as my main Router, turn
the WRT54G into a wireless access point and everything would be good to go.

So I hooked it up that way. Initially I had the Wireless Router connected
via the WAN port but realized that I needed to connect it to one of the LAN
ports. With that figured out I was in business.

Everything was working great, except for the fact that file sharing still
didn't work. I was basically at the same point I was above except that on
occasion the LAN PC would realize that the wireless PC was in the
workgroup. I can ping the laptop fine, but not the other way around.
While playing with the wireless routers, ping tool I had it set to
continuously ping my PC. During this time I happened to VPN to work to
check my e-mail and noticed that for that time period, the router was able
to ping the PC. I'm not sure if that actually means anything though.

My setup is as follows:
BEFSX41 - 192.168.1.1
WRT54G - 192.168.1.2
PC - 192.168.1.100
Laptop - 192.168.1.101

The only firewall enabled on any of the routers is on the wired router. I
tried disabling it, but it didn't change anything either. Besides for all
intents and purposes the Wireless router and laptop are now on the LAN side
of things.

I have no idea what else to try. I'm hoping somebody can give me a
suggestion or sees some obvious error. It's almost as if my PC has some
kind of firewall setup on it (other than the disabled Windows firewall) but
I don't have any idea where something like that could have come from.
Besides I can ping the PC just fine if I physically plug the laptop into
the wired router (I haven't tried doing the same thing on the wireless
Router).

Please if you have any ideas let me know. I don't know what else to do.

Thanks

> So I hooked it up that way. Initially I had the Wireless Router connected
> via the WAN port but realized that I needed to connect it to one of the
> LAN
> ports. With that figured out I was in business.

There is nothing wrong there.
>
> Everything was working great, except for the fact that file sharing still
> didn't work. I was basically at the same point I was above except that on
> occasion the LAN PC would realize that the wireless PC was in the
> workgroup. I can ping the laptop fine, but not the other way around.
> While playing with the wireless routers, ping tool I had it set to
> continuously ping my PC. During this time I happened to VPN to work to
> check my e-mail and noticed that for that time period, the router was able
> to ping the PC. I'm not sure if that actually means anything though.
>
> My setup is as follows:
> BEFSX41 - 192.168.1.1
> WRT54G - 192.168.1.2
> PC - 192.168.1.100
> Laptop - 192.168.1.101

That seems OK.
>
> The only firewall enabled on any of the routers is on the wired router. I
> tried disabling it, but it didn't change anything either. Besides for all
> intents and purposes the Wireless router and laptop are now on the LAN
> side of things.

The router FW would not come into play here on the LAN.

>
> I have no idea what else to try. I'm hoping somebody can give me a
> suggestion or sees some obvious error. It's almost as if my PC has some
> kind of firewall setup on it (other than the disabled Windows firewall)
> but I don't have any idea where something like that could have come from.
> Besides I can ping the PC just fine if I physically plug the laptop into
> the wired router (I haven't tried doing the same thing on the wireless
> Router).
>
> Please if you have any ideas let me know. I don't know what else to do.


I was told on my W11S4 v1 router to set it as a router and not a gateway
when I converted it to a switch, which there was an Admin screen for that.
I cannot say that's going to correct your problem. It seems that you're on
the money with your set-up.

The SX41 is a router VPN end-point solution and may be you need to do
something special in the setup. You should contact Linksys Tech Support
about it.

Duane

On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 02:25:26 GMT, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Here's my current situation.

Suggestion: If your posting lots of detail, start with what you're
trying to accomplish. It makes reading the "current situation" easier
to understand. Notice how I hop around with my answer following the
organization of your posting, rather than answering your question
which I'm sure eventually appears at the bottom of the message.

>About 18 months ago, my work supplied me with a Linksys BEFSX41 Router for
>security when working from home. I got that setup and working fine and was
>able to connect two PCs at home and share files across them as well as
>getting VPN going.
>
>A co-worker had showed me how to setup Remote Desktop from work to connect
>to my home computer (using dyn-ip.org) but after doing everything he said I
>was never able to get it to work.

I'll assume you have some XP mutation since you're trying to setup
Remote Desktop. Is it Home, Pro, or Media Center?

Remote desktop requires:
1. Windoze XP Pro as the server with a static IP address, or a static
DHCP assigned address so that it doesn't move. XP Home will NOT work.
2. Any Windoze version as the client. The Remote Desktop Client can
be downloaded from the MS web pile.
3. Redirecting TCP port 3389 from the WAN side of your router to the
Windoze XP Pro server.
4. Enable Remote Desktop Sharing on the XP Pro server.
Right Click on My Computah -> Properties -> Remote

See:
| http://www.wown.com/articles_tutoria...ws-XP-Pro.html
for details.

I do this all the time and it's quite easy. Instructions are all over
the web. However, I don't like Remote Desktop for various reasons and
prefer Symantec PcAnywhere 12.

>4 months ago I got my wife a laptop. I went out and bought a Linksys
>WRT54G Router and replaced the BEFSX41 with it. My existing home network
>was fine, but I was unable to get filesharing going between the two
>computers.

File sharing should have NOTHING to do with the choice of router.
Local file sharing doesn't use the router section. The wireless is a
bridge and does not involve anything with IP addresses. I suggest you
try to get file sharing working using a wired connection first (CAT5
cable to the switch ports in the Linksys WRT54G) before attempting to
deal with the wireless.

>With all firewalls turned off I was able at the following
>state:
>Neither computer could see each other in the workgroup

Try the following:
Start -> Run -> cmd <enter>
\\netbios_name_of_other_computer
That should open a window with a list of shares on that computer. If
that fails, try:
\\192.168.1.xxx
which is the IP address of the target computer. That should do the
same thing. If you can ping these machines, but not open the list of
shares, then you have not enabled sharing on the target computah. If
you get some kind of "cannot open..." error message, you have the
machines in different workgroups, or you do not have a common login
name and password on both machines. Lots of ways to do it wrong.

>The LAN PC could ping the laptop
>The laptop could not ping the LAN PC

Turn off the firewall in the LAN PC. I know you said it's off, but
the situation you describe could only happen if the firewall is still
on. You may have more than one firewall. Look for XP SP2 firewall,
ZoneAlarm, Norton Firewall, McAfee Firewall, etc.

>Using the IP address I could browse the laptops files.

Ok, so things are working in one direction only. I'll assume that
both the laptop and the LAN PC are running XP something. See:
http://www.wown.com/articles_tutorials/wxpsimsh.html
There's a tutorial on how to setup XP LAN networking in there
somewhere, but I can't seem to find it tonite.

>The WRT54G has a diagnostic Ping function. From it I could ping the
>laptop, the router itself but could not ping the PC.

Same issue. Turn off the firewall in the PC. Since the PC is
connected with a cable, there's a small chance that there may be a
flakey connection or cable. Replace just to be sure it's not the
cable.

>When I physically hooked the laptop up to the Router everything was fine.
>The laptop showed in the workgroup and file sharing worked great.

Weird. There should be absolutely no difference between using the
wireless LAN port and the wired LAN port. The wireless connection is
a bridge and does not involve any layer 3 IP configuration. The 802.3
ethernet packets are simply encapsulated inside 802.11 packets and
should emerge unchanged. To the best of my knowledge and experience,
there's no way a wireless connection could magically work in one
direction only.

>Because
>of this I had the idea of putting the BEFSX41 back as my main Router, turn
>the WRT54G into a wireless access point and everything would be good to go.

Well, that will work. However, you're recreating exactly the same
situation that you currently have. Traffic from the LAN PC to/from
the laptop go only through the wireless (bridge) part of the WRT54G
and the ethernet switch. The router part of the WRT54G is not in the
circuit.

>So I hooked it up that way. Initially I had the Wireless Router connected
>via the WAN port but realized that I needed to connect it to one of the LAN
>ports. With that figured out I was in business.
>
>Everything was working great, except for the fact that file sharing still
>didn't work.

Yep. That's what I would predict. See my previous paragraph.

>I was basically at the same point I was above except that on
>occasion the LAN PC would realize that the wireless PC was in the
>workgroup.

Packet loss? Try this stupid experiment. Dive into the WRT54G
wireless configuration page and change the speed from "auto" to
6Mbits/sec. That's the slowest OFDM speed. That should also be the
most reliable and least error infested.

>I can ping the laptop fine, but not the other way around.

Weird. I has to be a firewall issue. Are there any other PC's around
that can substitute for the LAN PC? If another PC works, then it has
to be something in the configuration of the LAN PC.

>While playing with the wireless routers, ping tool I had it set to
>continuously ping my PC. During this time I happened to VPN to work to
>check my e-mail and noticed that for that time period, the router was able
>to ping the PC. I'm not sure if that actually means anything though.

Without knowing how you have your VPN setup it's difficult to tell.
If you have the VPN setup to change the default gateway to whatever
gateway is at the other end of the VPN tunnel, then ALL your internet
traffic will end up going through the tunnel instead of directly to
the internet via your cable modem. However, that should have
absolutely nothing to do with LAN to LAN traffic.

>My setup is as follows:
>BEFSX41 - 192.168.1.1
>WRT54G - 192.168.1.2
>PC - 192.168.1.100
>Laptop - 192.168.1.101

Everything on the same subnet should allow everything to talk to each
other. Hopefully, you do not have both the WRT54G and the BEFSX41
connected simultaneously with both their DHCP servers enabled. That
will not work at all. It might also explain what's happening. The
gateway address delivered by each DHCP server is different. Therefore
the return path *MIGHT* be different if your LAN PC gets it's IP from
one router, while the laptop got its IP from the other router. Remove
the BEFSX41 and try it with just the WRT54G in the system.

>The only firewall enabled on any of the routers is on the wired router. I
>tried disabling it, but it didn't change anything either. Besides for all
>intents and purposes the Wireless router and laptop are now on the LAN side
>of things.
>
>I have no idea what else to try. I'm hoping somebody can give me a
>suggestion or sees some obvious error. It's almost as if my PC has some
>kind of firewall setup on it (other than the disabled Windows firewall) but
>I don't have any idea where something like that could have come from.

Well, I agreed. It acts like a PC firewall issue, smells like a PC
firewall issue, and may actually be a PC firewall issue. Dive into
the startup programs with msconfig or Startup Inspector for Windows
and see if there's some residue from a previous firewall program that
wasn't completely uninstalled. I've seen this problem with McAffee
and ZoneAlarm. The add-remove shows that the program has been
removed, but there's still some junk running.

>Besides I can ping the PC just fine if I physically plug the laptop into
>the wired router (I haven't tried doing the same thing on the wireless
>Router).
>
>Please if you have any ideas let me know. I don't know what else to do.
>
>Thanks

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

On 10 Jun 2005, you wrote in alt.internet.wireless:

> On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 02:25:26 GMT, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> Suggestion: If your posting lots of detail, start with what you're
> trying to accomplish. It makes reading the "current situation" easier
> to understand. Notice how I hop around with my answer following the
> organization of your posting, rather than answering your question
> which I'm sure eventually appears at the bottom of the message.

Point taken.

>>About 18 months ago, my work supplied me with a Linksys BEFSX41 Router
>>for security when working from home. I got that setup and working
>>fine and was able to connect two PCs at home and share files across
>>them as well as getting VPN going.
>>
>>A co-worker had showed me how to setup Remote Desktop from work to
>>connect to my home computer (using dyn-ip.org) but after doing
>>everything he said I was never able to get it to work.
>
> I'll assume you have some XP mutation since you're trying to setup
> Remote Desktop. Is it Home, Pro, or Media Center?
>
> Remote desktop requires:
> 1. Windoze XP Pro as the server with a static IP address, or a static
> DHCP assigned address so that it doesn't move. XP Home will NOT work.
> 2. Any Windoze version as the client. The Remote Desktop Client can
> be downloaded from the MS web pile.
> 3. Redirecting TCP port 3389 from the WAN side of your router to the
> Windoze XP Pro server.
> 4. Enable Remote Desktop Sharing on the XP Pro server.
> Right Click on My Computah -> Properties -> Remote

My LAN PC is XP-Pro (SP2), the laptop is XP Home. I have done all the
above. In a similar situation, Remote Desktop works just fine on the LAN,
but I can't get it to work from the WAN side of things. Port 3389 is
being forwarded to the LAN PC.

>>4 months ago I got my wife a laptop. I went out and bought a Linksys
>>WRT54G Router and replaced the BEFSX41 with it. My existing home
>>network was fine, but I was unable to get filesharing going between
>>the two computers.
>
> File sharing should have NOTHING to do with the choice of router.
> Local file sharing doesn't use the router section. The wireless is a
> bridge and does not involve anything with IP addresses. I suggest you
> try to get file sharing working using a wired connection first (CAT5
> cable to the switch ports in the Linksys WRT54G) before attempting to
> deal with the wireless.
>
>>With all firewalls turned off I was able at the following
>>state:
>>Neither computer could see each other in the workgroup
>
> Try the following:
> Start -> Run -> cmd <enter>
> \\netbios_name_of_other_computer
> That should open a window with a list of shares on that computer. If
> that fails, try:
> \\192.168.1.xxx
> which is the IP address of the target computer. That should do the
> same thing. If you can ping these machines, but not open the list of
> shares, then you have not enabled sharing on the target computah. If
> you get some kind of "cannot open..." error message, you have the
> machines in different workgroups, or you do not have a common login
> name and password on both machines. Lots of ways to do it wrong.

Well the netbios thing did not work, but \\192.168.1.103 (to the laptop
works fine) but going to the PC does not. I do not have a common login
name and password on both machines though. I fail to see why this would
matter.

>>The LAN PC could ping the laptop
>>The laptop could not ping the LAN PC
>
> Turn off the firewall in the LAN PC. I know you said it's off, but
> the situation you describe could only happen if the firewall is still
> on. You may have more than one firewall. Look for XP SP2 firewall,
> ZoneAlarm, Norton Firewall, McAfee Firewall, etc.
>
>>Using the IP address I could browse the laptops files.
>
> Ok, so things are working in one direction only. I'll assume that
> both the laptop and the LAN PC are running XP something. See:
> http://www.wown.com/articles_tutorials/wxpsimsh.html
> There's a tutorial on how to setup XP LAN networking in there
> somewhere, but I can't seem to find it tonite.
>
>>When I physically hooked the laptop up to the Router everything was
>>fine. The laptop showed in the workgroup and file sharing worked
>>great.
>
> Weird. There should be absolutely no difference between using the
> wireless LAN port and the wired LAN port. The wireless connection is
> a bridge and does not involve any layer 3 IP configuration. The 802.3
> ethernet packets are simply encapsulated inside 802.11 packets and
> should emerge unchanged. To the best of my knowledge and experience,
> there's no way a wireless connection could magically work in one
> direction only.

While it's been a long time since my networking class I thought the same
thing. Since I was seeing something else I didn't know for sure though.
At least I'm not crazy.

>>Because
>>of this I had the idea of putting the BEFSX41 back as my main Router,
>>turn the WRT54G into a wireless access point and everything would be
>>good to go.
>
> Well, that will work. However, you're recreating exactly the same
> situation that you currently have. Traffic from the LAN PC to/from
> the laptop go only through the wireless (bridge) part of the WRT54G
> and the ethernet switch. The router part of the WRT54G is not in the
> circuit.
>
>>So I hooked it up that way. Initially I had the Wireless Router
>>connected via the WAN port but realized that I needed to connect it to
>>one of the LAN ports. With that figured out I was in business.
>>
>>Everything was working great, except for the fact that file sharing
>>still didn't work.
>
> Yep. That's what I would predict. See my previous paragraph.
>
>>I was basically at the same point I was above except that on
>>occasion the LAN PC would realize that the wireless PC was in the
>>workgroup.
>
> Packet loss? Try this stupid experiment. Dive into the WRT54G
> wireless configuration page and change the speed from "auto" to
> 6Mbits/sec. That's the slowest OFDM speed. That should also be the
> most reliable and least error infested.

Didn't change anything.

>>I can ping the laptop fine, but not the other way around.
>
> Weird. I has to be a firewall issue. Are there any other PC's around
> that can substitute for the LAN PC? If another PC works, then it has
> to be something in the configuration of the LAN PC.
>
>>While playing with the wireless routers, ping tool I had it set to
>>continuously ping my PC. During this time I happened to VPN to work
>>to check my e-mail and noticed that for that time period, the router
>>was able to ping the PC. I'm not sure if that actually means anything
>>though.
>
> Without knowing how you have your VPN setup it's difficult to tell.
> If you have the VPN setup to change the default gateway to whatever
> gateway is at the other end of the VPN tunnel, then ALL your internet
> traffic will end up going through the tunnel instead of directly to
> the internet via your cable modem. However, that should have
> absolutely nothing to do with LAN to LAN traffic.
>
>>My setup is as follows:
>>BEFSX41 - 192.168.1.1
>>WRT54G - 192.168.1.2
>>PC - 192.168.1.100
>>Laptop - 192.168.1.101
>
> Everything on the same subnet should allow everything to talk to each
> other. Hopefully, you do not have both the WRT54G and the BEFSX41
> connected simultaneously with both their DHCP servers enabled. That
> will not work at all. It might also explain what's happening. The
> gateway address delivered by each DHCP server is different. Therefore
> the return path *MIGHT* be different if your LAN PC gets it's IP from
> one router, while the laptop got its IP from the other router. Remove
> the BEFSX41 and try it with just the WRT54G in the system.

Nope, disabled the DHCP server on the wireless router when I set it up.

>>The only firewall enabled on any of the routers is on the wired
>>router. I tried disabling it, but it didn't change anything either.
>>Besides for all intents and purposes the Wireless router and laptop
>>are now on the LAN side of things.
>>
>>I have no idea what else to try. I'm hoping somebody can give me a
>>suggestion or sees some obvious error. It's almost as if my PC has
>>some kind of firewall setup on it (other than the disabled Windows
>>firewall) but I don't have any idea where something like that could
>>have come from.
>
> Well, I agreed. It acts like a PC firewall issue, smells like a PC
> firewall issue, and may actually be a PC firewall issue. Dive into
> the startup programs with msconfig or Startup Inspector for Windows
> and see if there's some residue from a previous firewall program that
> wasn't completely uninstalled. I've seen this problem with McAffee
> and ZoneAlarm. The add-remove shows that the program has been
> removed, but there's still some junk running.
>

Okay. As far as I can remember, I have never installed ZoneAlarm or a
McAfee firewall. I am running McAfee virus scan, but I certainly didn't
see anything in there that is firewall-ish (although it certianly has a
ton of processes running).

Today I turned on my secondary PC (XP-Pro SP1). The laptop can ping that
one just fine. The secondary PC can ping the laptop, but NOT the primary
PC. I VPN'd to work just to make sure I wasn't crazy. While VPN'd the
laptop could ping the PC just fine and I was able to use remote desktop
to connect to 192.168.1.100.

I've started going through my processes punching each one into google
(something I do somewhat regularly) and nothing looks particularly out of
place. However I did notice that alg.exe was running which is supposedly
only used for ICS and Windows Firewall. AFAIK I'm not doing anything
with ICS so I killed it. Didn't change anything though. All the other
processes were either programs I knew I had running or windows OS
processes, that don't appear to be involved with networking.

Is it possible that something obvious is not setup correctly in the
Routers? I was starting to believe that the wireless Router was in
someway defective until I realized that I couldn't ping the PC from my
secondary PC (even though file sharing worked just fine!).

Thanks again for your help. I'm really hoping we can get this thing
figured out.

On 11-Jun-2005, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

<snipped>

> I do not have a common login
> name and password on both machines though. I fail to see why this would
> matter.

<snipped>


When dealing with Remote Desktop, it has been my experience that having the
same logon passwords usually end with a successful connection. Remember, if
you are attempting to connect to a machine running XP Home using Remote
Desktop, you will be unsuccessful, however, the XP Home machine can
successfully connect to a machine running XP PRO.
--
Just Me, D

On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 00:49:03 GMT, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>My LAN PC is XP-Pro (SP2), the laptop is XP Home. I have done all the
>above. In a similar situation, Remote Desktop works just fine on the LAN,
>but I can't get it to work from the WAN side of things. Port 3389 is
>being forwarded to the LAN PC.

Remote desktop should work. Try it from the XP Home laptop to the XP
Pro LAN PC. I forgot to mention some items.
1. The XP SP2 firewall exceptions has to include Remote Desktop.
2. The user or Administrator login *MUST* have a password assigned.
If there's no password, then you'll get some kind of security related
error message. I forgot the exact message.
3. If you have more than one video card running, remote desktop will
screw up badly. Use Pc Anywhere instead.

You can get the Remote Desktop client at:
| http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
It's also available for the Mac:
| http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

>Well the netbios thing did not work, but \\192.168.1.103 (to the laptop
>works fine) but going to the PC does not. I do not have a common login
>name and password on both machines though. I fail to see why this would
>matter.

The common login doesn't really matter if you're doing "simple"
directory sharing from XP to XP. It's an easy way of not having to
type a login/password every time you connect to an XP share from a W98
or WinME box.

The \\192.168.1.xxx trick *SHOULD* work to the LAN PC. Try a little
troubleshooting locally on the LAN PC. Try:
1. From the cmd prompt:
net view
net view \\netbios_name_of_LAN_PC
That should give a list of available servers and shares including the
ones on the LAN PC. If you get an error message, something is screwed
up on the LAN PC. I don't want to speculate exactly what's broken.

2. Not being able to ping the LAN PC is indicative of a firewall
issue (if normal web browsing through the router really works on the
LAN PC). Try pinging yourself from the LAN PC:
ping 192.168.1.xxx
ping 127.0.0.1
They should both work. If not, the IP stack is busted or once again,
the firwall has a problem.

3. Try some of the network diagnostic commands:
ipconfig
arp -a
netstat
tracert any_machine
nbtstat -A your_ip_address
I'm not so much looking for diagnostic output as I am looking for
error messages when the programs are run. That would indicate
something busted with the IP stack.

>While it's been a long time since my networking class I thought the same
>thing. Since I was seeing something else I didn't know for sure though.
>At least I'm not crazy.

You're doing fine so far. Whatever is wrong has to be something
simple (or buried deep inside Windoze). I lke the idea of introducing
a 3rd PC into the LAN to act as a tie breaker. If two out of three
work perfectly, then it's a fairly good guess that whatever is wrong
is broken on the odd PC.

>Today I turned on my secondary PC (XP-Pro SP1). The laptop can ping that
>one just fine. The secondary PC can ping the laptop, but NOT the primary
>PC. I VPN'd to work just to make sure I wasn't crazy. While VPN'd the
>laptop could ping the PC just fine and I was able to use remote desktop
>to connect to 192.168.1.100.

Oh-oh. By any chance are you using the same class C IP block for the
VPN as for your local LAN? That doesn't work and creates all kinds of
weird problems. If your remote office network assigns an IP of
192.168.1.xxx, then you cannot use 192.168.1.xxx on your local LAN.

In addition, I've seen routers and a few clients (mostly Unix) go
insane when connected through a VPN where the terminating router has
RIP or RIP2 enabled. This will change the default route on both the
local router and sometime the local client. If you have no control
over the remote VPN router, at least check that RIP is disabled in
both directions in your routers.

Also, extra protocols (Netware and Netbeui) can cause problems if they
have magically become the default protocol. If they are present on
either machine, I suggest you disable or remove these protocols.

>I've started going through my processes punching each one into google
>(something I do somewhat regularly) and nothing looks particularly out of
>place. However I did notice that alg.exe was running which is supposedly
>only used for ICS and Windows Firewall. AFAIK I'm not doing anything
>with ICS so I killed it. Didn't change anything though. All the other
>processes were either programs I knew I had running or windows OS
>processes, that don't appear to be involved with networking.

ICS will also mess things up as it turns your PC into an NAT router.
I'm not sure of its exact effects because I don't use the piece of
[insert suitable explitive]. Methinks it would be best to uninstall
the service instead of just killing the process.

Run:
ipconfig /all | more
and see if there are any funny looking IP addresses listed on
interfaces that you didn't know were running (i.e. ICS).

>Is it possible that something obvious is not setup correctly in the
>Routers?

No. As I previously ranted, the router section of is not in the
system when going from LAN client to LAN client. The router is only
in the circuit when going through the WAN port. However the router
and remote VPN router can deliver funny numbers via DHCP and RIP.
Therefore, try this experiment. Unplug the WAN port from the router.
Reboot both computahs. Make sure ICS and whatever VPN client you're
using is off, disabled, or uninstalled. Try the client to client test
again with ping. If you can't ping each other, then nothing else is
going to work.

>I was starting to believe that the wireless Router was in
>someway defective until I realized that I couldn't ping the PC from my
>secondary PC (even though file sharing worked just fine!).
>
>Thanks again for your help. I'm really hoping we can get this thing
>figured out.

I'm still stuck with a mystery I can't explain. Why would it work
with a direct CAT5 cable to the LAN ports on the router, but not via
wireless. As far as I know, that's impossible.

Good luck.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff Liebermann <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news(E-Mail Removed):

> On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 00:49:03 GMT, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>My LAN PC is XP-Pro (SP2), the laptop is XP Home. I have done all the
>>above. In a similar situation, Remote Desktop works just fine on the
>>LAN, but I can't get it to work from the WAN side of things. Port
>>3389 is being forwarded to the LAN PC.
>
> Remote desktop should work. Try it from the XP Home laptop to the XP
> Pro LAN PC. I forgot to mention some items.
> 1. The XP SP2 firewall exceptions has to include Remote Desktop.
> 2. The user or Administrator login *MUST* have a password assigned.
> If there's no password, then you'll get some kind of security related
> error message. I forgot the exact message.
> 3. If you have more than one video card running, remote desktop will
> screw up badly. Use Pc Anywhere instead.
>

Remote Desktop across the LAN works fine. It's only from the WAN side or
the laptop that I can't get it to work.

>>Well the netbios thing did not work, but \\192.168.1.103 (to the
>>laptop works fine) but going to the PC does not. I do not have a
>>common login name and password on both machines though. I fail to see
>>why this would matter.
>
> The common login doesn't really matter if you're doing "simple"
> directory sharing from XP to XP. It's an easy way of not having to
> type a login/password every time you connect to an XP share from a W98
> or WinME box.

Okay, that's not a problem then.

> The \\192.168.1.xxx trick *SHOULD* work to the LAN PC. Try a little
> troubleshooting locally on the LAN PC. Try:
> 1. From the cmd prompt:
> net view
> net view \\netbios_name_of_LAN_PC
> That should give a list of available servers and shares including the
> ones on the LAN PC. If you get an error message, something is screwed
> up on the LAN PC. I don't want to speculate exactly what's broken.
>
> 2. Not being able to ping the LAN PC is indicative of a firewall
> issue (if normal web browsing through the router really works on the
> LAN PC). Try pinging yourself from the LAN PC:
> ping 192.168.1.xxx
> ping 127.0.0.1
> They should both work. If not, the IP stack is busted or once again,
> the firwall has a problem.
>
> 3. Try some of the network diagnostic commands:
> ipconfig
> arp -a
> netstat
> tracert any_machine
> nbtstat -A your_ip_address
> I'm not so much looking for diagnostic output as I am looking for
> error messages when the programs are run. That would indicate
> something busted with the IP stack.

1. Worked fine, but didn't show the laptop of course.
2. Pinging myself isn't a problem.
3. ipconfig, arp, netstat and tracert all worked just fine. I'd did see
something I didn't like in netstat (a CLOSE_WAIT connection to ini.fi??)
which I'll investigate further. I've never done a nbtstat before. This
is the output I got which seems a little odd to me:

Local Area Connection 3:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.100] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
MORDRED <00> UNIQUE Registered
MSHOME <00> GROUP Registered
MORDRED <20> UNIQUE Registered
MSHOME <1E> GROUP Registered
MSHOME <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered


Does that seem right to you?


>
>>Today I turned on my secondary PC (XP-Pro SP1). The laptop can ping
>>that one just fine. The secondary PC can ping the laptop, but NOT the
>>primary PC. I VPN'd to work just to make sure I wasn't crazy. While
>>VPN'd the laptop could ping the PC just fine and I was able to use
>>remote desktop to connect to 192.168.1.100.
>
> Oh-oh. By any chance are you using the same class C IP block for the
> VPN as for your local LAN? That doesn't work and creates all kinds of
> weird problems. If your remote office network assigns an IP of
> 192.168.1.xxx, then you cannot use 192.168.1.xxx on your local LAN.

Nope my Client IP is 130.164.36.X. We're a pretty big tech company and I
don't think IT department would make that mistake.

> In addition, I've seen routers and a few clients (mostly Unix) go
> insane when connected through a VPN where the terminating router has
> RIP or RIP2 enabled. This will change the default route on both the
> local router and sometime the local client. If you have no control
> over the remote VPN router, at least check that RIP is disabled in
> both directions in your routers.

Only the wireless router has any mention of RIP and it's disabled.

> Also, extra protocols (Netware and Netbeui) can cause problems if they
> have magically become the default protocol. If they are present on
> either machine, I suggest you disable or remove these protocols.
>
>>I've started going through my processes punching each one into google
>>(something I do somewhat regularly) and nothing looks particularly out
>>of place. However I did notice that alg.exe was running which is
>>supposedly only used for ICS and Windows Firewall. AFAIK I'm not
>>doing anything with ICS so I killed it. Didn't change anything
>>though. All the other processes were either programs I knew I had
>>running or windows OS processes, that don't appear to be involved with
>>networking.
>
> ICS will also mess things up as it turns your PC into an NAT router.
> I'm not sure of its exact effects because I don't use the piece of
> [insert suitable explitive]. Methinks it would be best to uninstall
> the service instead of just killing the process.
>
> Run:
> ipconfig /all | more
> and see if there are any funny looking IP addresses listed on
> interfaces that you didn't know were running (i.e. ICS).

Everything looks fine.

>>Is it possible that something obvious is not setup correctly in the
>>Routers?
>
> No. As I previously ranted, the router section of is not in the
> system when going from LAN client to LAN client. The router is only
> in the circuit when going through the WAN port. However the router
> and remote VPN router can deliver funny numbers via DHCP and RIP.
> Therefore, try this experiment. Unplug the WAN port from the router.
> Reboot both computahs. Make sure ICS and whatever VPN client you're
> using is off, disabled, or uninstalled. Try the client to client test
> again with ping. If you can't ping each other, then nothing else is
> going to work.

I'll try that either tonight or tomorrow.

> I'm still stuck with a mystery I can't explain. Why would it work
> with a direct CAT5 cable to the LAN ports on the router, but not via
> wireless. As far as I know, that's impossible.

Well I know that I can get filesharing to work without being able to ping
this PC as my 2nd LAN PC is doing it. So something is swallowing the
pings, but will still let filesharing work. I obviously can't figure out
what a ping wouldn't work but frankly I don't need to get that to work.
Do you think something basic could be broken on the laptop PC with
regards to the Wireless connection? I know the Wireless and Local Area
connections both show up under Network Connections. Since you don't
think it's anything with either of the routers then it's got to be a
problem on the laptop.

Thanks for your help.

"Doug Jamal" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
newsJNqe.124204$(E-Mail Removed) :

>
> On 11-Jun-2005, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
> <snipped>
>
>> I do not have a common login
>> name and password on both machines though. I fail to see why this
>> would matter.
>
> <snipped>
>
>
> When dealing with Remote Desktop, it has been my experience that
> having the same logon passwords usually end with a successful
> connection. Remember, if you are attempting to connect to a machine
> running XP Home using Remote Desktop, you will be unsuccessful,
> however, the XP Home machine can successfully connect to a machine
> running XP PRO.

Yup that's what I'm doing, or trying to do rather, XPHome to XP Pro.

On 15-Jun-2005, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> When dealing with Remote Desktop, it has been my experience that
> > having the same logon passwords usually end with a successful
> > connection. Remember, if you are attempting to connect to a machine
> > running XP Home using Remote Desktop, you will be unsuccessful,
> > however, the XP Home machine can successfully connect to a machine
> > running XP PRO.
>
> Yup that's what I'm doing, or trying to do rather, XPHome to XP Pro.


Let's Review.

1. On the XP Pro machine, have you selected "Allow users to connect remotely
to this computer" option in the System Properties menu? (right click on MY
COMPUTER then click PROPERTIES then the REMOTE tab)

2. While in the REMOTE tab menu, click SELECT REMOTE USERS. Click the ADD
button and add the usernames of the users who will be allowed to logon
remotely to your system. It would be easier if the users already have an
account set up on the particular system.

3.On the XP Home machine, start the Remote Desktop Connection app. Enter the
name of the XP Pro machine (right click on MY COMPUTER, then click on the
COMPUTER NAME tab. The name of that computer is or should be listed under
FULL COMPUTER NAME)

4. Now back to the Remote Desktop Connection..After entering the name of the
XP Pro machine, click on OPTIONS to expand the menu. Type in your username
and password and then click CONNECT at the bottom of the screen.

Afterwards, you should be able to connect. After successful connection, you
can go back and fine tune the settings.

--
Just Me, D

Mordred wrote:

> "Doug Jamal" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> newsJNqe.124204$(E-Mail Removed) :
>
>>
>> On 11-Jun-2005, Mordred <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>>
>> <snipped>
>>
>>> I do not have a common login
>>> name and password on both machines though. I fail to see why this
>>> would matter.
>>
>> <snipped>
>>
>>
>> When dealing with Remote Desktop, it has been my experience that
>> having the same logon passwords usually end with a successful
>> connection. Remember, if you are attempting to connect to a machine
>> running XP Home using Remote Desktop, you will be unsuccessful,
>> however, the XP Home machine can successfully connect to a machine
>> running XP PRO.
>
> Yup that's what I'm doing, or trying to do rather, XPHome to XP Pro.

As far as that is concerned, you can use MS Netmeeting RDS that's on the O/S
too. You'll have to tweak it I here on XP which you can findout using
Google. There is a free one that is very good too,which I used and I have
recommenced to others but the name of the software escapes me right now. I
had RDS using the software between the machine running in about a minute.
Maybe, someone else will supply the name of the popular RDS program.

Duane