i'm having some trouble starting a network two machine network up.

here's the setup:
i have a 2003 server enterprise ed. and one winXP machine. i have a
linksys wireless g router (wrt54g).

i have three roomates that i don't want on the network (they have macs
anyway) but who need wireless internet so the router has to do dhcp
therefore i didn't install dhcp as a role on the server. the server is
doing dns however.

from the server i can ping the XP pc by both ip and alias, but from the
pc i cannot ping the server at all and it wont let me connect to the
domain giving the error "domain controller for the domain xxx could not
be contacted". both machines can ping the router and have internet
connection.

i think this is a dns problem somewhere, i just can't figure out where.
i've tried just about every combination of dns addresses there are and
can't get the pc to see the server. any suggestions?

If you can't ping by IP address, you need to resolve that first (firewall,
whatever). Then make sure your router is giving out the IP address of the
server as the DNS (in it's DHCP options).

....kurt


"billy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> i'm having some trouble starting a network two machine network up.
>
> here's the setup:
> i have a 2003 server enterprise ed. and one winXP machine. i have a
> linksys wireless g router (wrt54g).
>
> i have three roomates that i don't want on the network (they have macs
> anyway) but who need wireless internet so the router has to do dhcp
> therefore i didn't install dhcp as a role on the server. the server is
> doing dns however.
>
> from the server i can ping the XP pc by both ip and alias, but from the
> pc i cannot ping the server at all and it wont let me connect to the
> domain giving the error "domain controller for the domain xxx could not
> be contacted". both machines can ping the router and have internet
> connection.
>
> i think this is a dns problem somewhere, i just can't figure out where.
> i've tried just about every combination of dns addresses there are and
> can't get the pc to see the server. any suggestions?
>

thanks for the reply kurt. windows firewall is off... i even tried
temporarily turning the firewall on the router off to no avail. when i
put the dns server as 192.168.1.5 on the tcp/ip properties on my xp
machine it loses internet connectivity. also, when i do ns lookup from
either machine, i get "can't find server name for address 192.168.1.5"
the xp machine then goes to a comcast server as it's default and my
server says "default: unknown/address: 192.168.1.5" and keeps internet
connectivity. the router has spots for dns1, dns2, and dns3. i put
192.168.1.5 in one and leave the other two blank. still can't ping
from the pc. thanks again and any other suggestions would be great.

You can't join the domain or do any domain-related things unless your DNS
server is your local AD DNS server. All Windows services (even Netlogon) are
discovered via SRV records that only exist on the DNS server for the AD
Domain you are trying to join / log on to. If you cant' resolve Internet
addresses, your DNS server is not set up correctly. If you can't resolve
local addresses you're in even bigger trouble. But the first thing to do is
verify TCP/IP connectivity using IP addresses, taking DNS out of the
picture. If you don't have basic layer 3 connections, nothing else will
work.

....kurt

"billy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> thanks for the reply kurt. windows firewall is off... i even tried
> temporarily turning the firewall on the router off to no avail. when i
> put the dns server as 192.168.1.5 on the tcp/ip properties on my xp
> machine it loses internet connectivity. also, when i do ns lookup from
> either machine, i get "can't find server name for address 192.168.1.5"
> the xp machine then goes to a comcast server as it's default and my
> server says "default: unknown/address: 192.168.1.5" and keeps internet
> connectivity. the router has spots for dns1, dns2, and dns3. i put
> 192.168.1.5 in one and leave the other two blank. still can't ping
> from the pc. thanks again and any other suggestions would be great.
>

i'm beginning to believe it's the xp pc. here's what the ipconfig /all
looks like. let me know if something is cooky.

Windows IP Configuration:

>Host Name ........................... : Billy
>Primary DNS Suffix................ :
>Node Type............................. : Unknown
>IP Routing Enabled................. : No
>WINS Proxy Enabled.............. : No
>DNS Suffix Search List............ : speakmusicmedia.local

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

>Connection-specific DNS Suffix. : speakmusicmedia.local
>Description.............................. : Linksys NC100 Fast
Ethernet Adapter
>Physical Address..................... : 00-20-78-06-76-63
>Dhcp Enabled.......................... : Yes
>Autoconfiguration Enabled......... : Yes
>IP Address............................... : 192.168.1.100
>Subnet Mask............................ : 255.255.255.0
>Default Gateway........................ : 192.168.1.1
>DHCP Server............................. : 192.168.1.1
>DNS Servers............................. : 192.168.1.5
>>>68.87.64.196
>>>68.87.66.196

192.168.1.1 is the linksys wireless g router
192.168.1.5 is the server

with this configuration i have internet connectivity and cannot ping
the server.

thanks, billy

Is your W2K3 server SP1? If so, make sure you have allowed icmp echo
requests. Or maybe even roll back to pre SP1 until you get it working. If
you have Internet name resolution, then you are getting that resolution from
the server (unless you have a secondary DNS server configured, which you
should not until you get everything working). Assuming you ARE getting name
resolution, the most likely thing is that the server is not responding to
echo requests.

....kurt


"billy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> i'm beginning to believe it's the xp pc. here's what the ipconfig /all
> looks like. let me know if something is cooky.
>
> Windows IP Configuration:
>
> >Host Name ........................... : Billy
> >Primary DNS Suffix................ :
> >Node Type............................. : Unknown
> >IP Routing Enabled................. : No
> >WINS Proxy Enabled.............. : No
> >DNS Suffix Search List............ : speakmusicmedia.local
>
> Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
>
> >Connection-specific DNS Suffix. : speakmusicmedia.local
> >Description.............................. : Linksys NC100 Fast
> Ethernet Adapter
> >Physical Address..................... : 00-20-78-06-76-63
> >Dhcp Enabled.......................... : Yes
> >Autoconfiguration Enabled......... : Yes
> >IP Address............................... : 192.168.1.100
> >Subnet Mask............................ : 255.255.255.0
> >Default Gateway........................ : 192.168.1.1
> >DHCP Server............................. : 192.168.1.1
> >DNS Servers............................. : 192.168.1.5
> >>>68.87.64.196
> >>>68.87.66.196
>
> 192.168.1.1 is the linksys wireless g router
> 192.168.1.5 is the server
>
> with this configuration i have internet connectivity and cannot ping
> the server.
>
> thanks, billy
>