Network and XP

[Guest]

While I appreciate the suggestion that the problem is entirely due to
misconfiguration of the Windows Firewall I cannot relate it to the problem as
originally stated. We have PCs on a network behind a router. The router
allocates addresses on the LAN from a DHCP address pool to all PCs that have
not been configured with a static address. Steve got me to run certain tests
- specifically designed to determine whether the PC with a static address
could ping the other PCs by their computer names. The tests showed that it
could not - the network path was not found. His comment was "When computer
access by IP address succeeds but computer access by name fails, it indicates
a problem with NetBIOS name resolution". Can you tell us which ports are used
on the LAN that have to be opened in the firewall to get round this problem?
I am sure this will be of great interest to anyone having problems with
workgroups.

 

[Carey Holzman]

Sure. It's all explained in detail here:
http://www.chaminade.org/MIS/Articles/FirewallPortSecurity.htm

Carey

 

[Guest]

Thank you for this - I will check on how I can make use of it tomorrow. One
thing I have not yet done is to set up a firewall log, which I will do before
anything else, so as to be able to check on results

 

[Carey Holzman]

You're welcome. Let us know how it turns out...

Carey

 

[Guest]

I found that the setup with multiple servers was unreliable - so I changed to
static addresses for 2 other PCs in the same room and an LMHOSTS file. Apart
from a problem getting the network printer re-attached all seems now to be
well. For the printer I had to power it down and disconnect it from the LAN
hub and then reverse the process before the printer installation process
would find it.

I am now left with only one problem - how to set up Remote Desktop Sharing
from the PC that is set up as the VPN server to another PC on the same LAN. I
have tried adding a VPN connection from the VPN server PC to the target. Also
I have opened port 23 on the target and tried using RDS both with and without
the VPN connection. Should I use NetMeeting?

 

[Carey Holzman]

VPN is designed for accessing a PC securely over the Internet. Your LAN is
already secure.

Why not try http://www.realvnc.com/

Carey

 

[Guest]

I grovel! I had forgotten to update the remote tab in System on the Control
Panel on the other PC.... Now my work PC can be used to start RDS on other
PCs on the LAN.