For a year I've been enjoying a small LAN with 4 pc's (one wireless) I could never hook up with just the TCP/IP protocol and had to add the IPX/SPX protocol to connect--all except one pc, that is--a wireless Sony Picturebook. they all run Windows XP.

Any guru's out there who know why I can't just have TCP/Ip and connect normally?

I ask because I'm experimenting with Xandros LInux right now and have it dual booted on several of the pc's. I have variable success in using a shared printer hooked to one of the Linux boxes over the MS network and wonder if it isn't some problem I've never understood about the MS netowrk. Everything works great between Linux boxes.

A simple home network made easy.

You dont mention that you are using a router but I will assume you are.
1. Ensure the router is DHCP enabled.
2. Set each machine to automatically configure its ip dns and gateway.

Now if you are still having problems connecting (its usually the router that is the culprit, try the next option...)

The router will generally offer an ip pool of 198.162.2.2-192.168.2.40

I would give the first computer an ip of 192.168.2.2, then .3, .4,.5. The subnet mask will be 255.255.255.0 .

I would set the dns and the gateway to 192.168.2.1 as the router would be acting as the gateway to the internet.

Does that help at all?

You could also statically set the ip addresses in the following fashion to test connectivity locally:

pc1 = 192.168.1.1

pc2 = 192.168.1.2

pc3 = 192.168.1.3

pc4 = 192.168.1.4

then goto a dos box (start-->run-->cmd.exe) and test with icmp:

from pc1 type: ping 192.168.1.2 You should get replies from the box that you are pinging (pc2 in this case)

If that does not work, make sure that any firewall apps you may have on each of the boxes are set to let that communication through (make sure your other internal ip's are set as "trusted") then try again.

If that does not work, ping 127.0.0.1 on any of the machines to test the card itself (thats the local loopback address)

Try those and let us know what you find out ;)

Hope this helps some :)

/JD

Oh yeah, either disable (remove) the novell protocol (ipx/spx) or make sure it is last in the binding order for each of the cards ;)

EDIT- Also, if you want the other boxes to show up in network neighborhood, you either need to run a wins server or use lmhosts files (to resolve the ip addresses to the netbios names) OR make sure that netbios over tcp is enabled in the advanced properties of the tcp/ip protocol under the wins tab ;)

Yes, using a Linksys wireless router with 4 port switch.

I'll use the above infor and reconfigure the lot. Thanks Terminatr and JackDynne

I'm sorta in the same boat. I have a Linksys router running with my roommates ME box (i know, trying to get him to upgrade), a 2k box and trying to add a Linux box. I can get the Linux on the net (so it's talking to the router ok) but can't get it to see the Windows boxes or the Win boxes to see the Linux box.
Am running Mandrake 8.2 if that helps. Any info. or pointing in the right direction would be much appreciated.
I'm pretty new to networking so please bear with me.

Thanks.

Indy

To use any Linux varient in a Windows area you will need to enable samba. This enables your Linux box to see, hear, and touch Windows boxes. You can even share a drive on your Linux box and have it read by ALL Windows boxes. :)

I hope that helps.

I'm sorry. I should have gone through everything I've done.

I have samba enabled, and it will see my other box in that it sees the 2k box name. but it will not see any of the shared drives and, therefore, mount any of the drives. 2k does not see the linux box at all.
my roommates computer it can see and see the shared drive but not mount the drive (I think the reason for that is that his box has a login password. Linux doesn't ask for a password to attempt to mount the drive but the 2k box does and will do so successfuly).

Thanks.

Indy

by not see the box, do you mean it's not even pingable?

Well, I messed around with it some more last night. Samba will see my 2k and ME boxes. It will attempt to mount the ME box, but fail, it won't even see any mountable drives on the 2k box.

2k will see the linux box, but it asks for a pass. The 1 user and root do not work to log in. It fails every time. That's where I'm at now.

Indy

Big time success. I have been running 4 Windows XP boxes for some time and because I had the Novell protocol in one of em, I had to put it in all to for the LAN to work and it really worked well. Frankly I never well understood this element.

I removed all those protocols and just have TCP/IP. IP's are not the problem since they are supplied by DHCP. I did reset the range and release all the computers individually, then renew. Perfect.

Then I rebooted 2 of the XP boxes into Xandros Linux and bingo. they all talk. Only thing left is to configure the remote printer for the Xandros boxes. Should be easy. By default samba runs in Xandros. There seems to be a choice of using Windows Workgroup or NFS. This is all working on Windows Workgroup.

I do like the Xandros distro--next favorite is Mandrake9. Least favorite is RedHat8. Also like Suse

JackDynne had the clue when he said to remove IPX/SPX

:)

Microsoft and Novell protocols have never been the best of buddies ;) :lol: :D

Glad it worked out for ya :) Now let's get cookin on Indy's problem :)

**NOTE: Indy, I have replicated the last part of this thread (that pertains to your specific problem) to the Alternative OS Support forum looking for a good response from our gurus there ;)

/JD

ND4SPD, make sure your firewalls aren't getting in the way. I had a similar problem also when trying to configure my Samba Network.

To configure your Windows PCs for networking maybe this site will help you. /http://www.homenethelp.com/home-network.asp

Also, this may help to configure Samba. /http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/desktop.xml#doc_chap7
It is Gentoo specific, however it shouldn't be too hard to translate the ideas across.

Thanks man. Moved part of the post in the other forum. Will look for replies there.

Indy

Nd4Spd....i tried this one....one thing i notice is that your username defined in linux box should be the same in the your MS box.

hope this works

JacKDynne, your post is particularly helpful. But, I'm still floundering. I've got 3 xp and 2 Linux boxes on the LAN, No server, hooked to a 4 port Linksys wireless router. (4 hardwired, one wireless). After taking out the IPX/SPX protocol, as you suggested and running Network wizard--ALL SYSTEMS GO. When I rebooted the xp boxes could no longer talk--and you warned of this. I don't yet understand WINS nor Imhost files. I did reinstall IPX/SPX and finally found the tab (not easy) where you can change the biinding order. Now the xp boxes talk. The 2 Linux boxes talk ok and one of the xp boxes talks with the Linux's. Confusing. Guess I gotta figure out what WINS is and what Imhost is and if they apply to my particular setup.

You got me on the right track. Thanks.

What do you mean by talk? Try this:

Goto box 1 and type (from a command line as stated above) ipconfig /all Take note of the ip address and the default gateway (that should be your router's ip address)

Goto box 2 and repeat the steps for box one. Now try pinging (as mentioned in prior posts) the ip address of the first box. Do you get replies back? If so, then they can talk ;)

Wins stands for windows internet name service (I think) and basically is a dynamic way of resolving netbios names (the computer name) to an ip address (Lmhosts file is a static mapping which does the same thing except you have to manually edit it)

If you just want to be able to access files on each system, and they can talk as mentioned above, AND I am correct in assuming that you have admin accounts on all the boxes and the password and account names are the same (phew, I got that all out in one breath) then you can just map to the hidden share on each box (all windows have a hidden administrative share, which is the drive letter with a $ ;) shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, don't tell anyone :D )

So if you wanted to map to box 1 with an ip address of 192.168.1.1 you can right click on network neighborhood, select: map network drive, then type in the ip address (full UNC path) followed by the hidden share name or just a plain old share name: \\192.168.1.1\c$ or just \\192.168.1.1\sharename
Note: You can also type from a command line net use /? to see the command line options to do the same thing ;)

Let us know how this works out; Hope this helps some :)

Oh yeah, and if you are not connecting to a Novell server, then I would just get rid of IPX/SPX, there is really no need for it and it might be causing some conflicts ;)

/JD

*bump*

Any luck rikytik? :)

/JD

Sorry, been so preoccupied I didn't look at this thread. I didn't try the procedure just above, but will early tomorrow a.m.

Meanwhile, if I have IPX/SPX installed the xp boxes work wondrfully on the LAN, but the Linux boxes won't communicate with them.

Appreciate your sticking with me on this.

Making headway. Took IPX/SPX out of the xp boxes. All pings work--so the xp boxes are "talking". As it sits everything seems to be working. Seems to me I was here once before and everything fell flat after I rebooted everything.

One thing. Maybe you are right in mentioning the firewall software. I thought I had disabled them on each machine in the past. There is a possibility I was wrong about that.

So, I'll give it a little time. Sure appreciate your tips JacKDynne.

No problem rikytik :)

Hope it all works out ;)

/JD

Just thought I'd mention that a router reserves the first IP for itself.

192.168.1.1 = router

192.168.1.2 = computer 1

192.168.1.3 = computer 2

etc

also DHCP can be a real pain in the butt, for such a small network I would just assign static IP's and then you turn off the the DHCP service.

My router is 192.168.1.1 and the LAN starts at 100. I'm wondering if I should go ahead and assign IP's. Usually they never change, but I do hook up with different wireless hardware from time to time and that makes a certain machine show up under a different IP.

And....after this a.m. when everything was working so well, I hooked up with a wireless machine and couldn't access the printer on the LAN. Talk about frustrating. So I put IPX/SPX back in the wireless and the machine with the printer--bam, works. Sheesh. Keeps a guy young, I guess. <chuckle>

I feel kinda stupid. Most of my trouble seems to have been not setting up correctly the "trusted" ip range in the firewall software resident on each pc on the LAN. So, now, no more IPX/SPX, using DHCP through the 4 port LinkSys router, the wireless pc is working fine, printer prints. All systems seem Go.


What threw me completely off track was that if IPX/SPX was installed then the LAN functioned perfectly between the WinXP boxes--but the Linux boxes wouldn't connect to the XP boxes.