XP ICS and ip range

[igby]

I had ICS working, with an XP machine sharing its dialup out over a
wireless LAN. It was not a 192.168.111.* network. The XP machine has
an external wireless client (not access point). There is a wireless
access point elsewhere, which is a linksys router, with an internal
DHCP server; actually it is marketed and designed for broadband use,
with a built-in "Internet" plug, but I don't use that.

The ICS quit working on me (I don't know why). I decided to remove the
Network Bridge on the XP box (I had the wireless port on the XP
machine in a software Network Bridge, because the XP network wizard
had done that), because I read some articles on the web that said
*not* to use the XP Network Bridge.

Well, I went through some pain. I turned off ICS on the dialup and
turned it back on. Turning on ICS and pointing it to the wireless nic
(well, it is a USB client, but acts as a virtual NIC I gather),
immediately reset the wireless nic to be 192.168.0.1. I rebooted and
reconfigured the wireless nic to be 192.168.111.111, so the rest of my
LAN (the router/access point and its machines) would still work, but,
no joy. I couldn't hit the internet from those machines. Also, on the
XP machine I didn't see port 53 at all in netstat -an (but, I never
did, even after I got it working, as revealed below).

I read some statements that the ICS has to be on 192.168.0.1, so I
reconfigured it back to that, and changed my linksys router to be
192.168.0.10 (and to serve out 192.168.0.* addresses over its DHCP,
with DNS=192.168.0.1). Still no joy. I tried hardcoding in an IP
(192.168.0.99), DNS (192.168.0.1), and gateway (192.168.0.1) into a
client. Still no joy.

Then (following a trick here), I turned off ICS on the dialup, then
turned it back on; that did the trick ! Now the hardcoded client gets
the internet. DNS and web traffic. [But, the ICS host still shows
nothing on port 53 on netstat -an ?]

Then I unhardcoded the client, to get its settings from the linksys
router. Things still work. Happy days.

The linksys router will give out DNS, but it doesn't let me seed the
gateway; it always gives out itself as gateway. I think it really is
functioning as a switch across its regular ports (I don't use its
"Internet" port), but, I want a solution requiring no configuration on
the clients, and I can't see how to get the linksys to give out
gateway=192.168.0.1 (the XP), so instead I added a default static
route to the linksys static route table (dest=0.0.0.0, mask=0.0.0.0,
gateway=192.168.0.1, metric=1), and things seem copacetic.

Questions:

Why don't I see *.53 (or 192.168.0.*:53) in netstat -an on the XP
(ICS) host ?

Can I change my XP host away from 192.168.0.1 to something else ?
(I will probably try later, but, this was exhausting up to this
point.)

Can I change my LAN back to 192.168.111.* ?

Why did turning the ICS off on the dialup, then back on, make the
magic difference ?

Is there a registry area controlling the ICS DHCP server, with any
parameters ?



Cheers.

 

[Marc Reynolds [MSFT]]

Hi,

Hopefully some answers for you:

Questions:

Why don't I see *.53 (or 192.168.0.*:53) in netstat -an on the XP
(ICS) host ?

Is port 53 listening on any address? It could be listening on 127.0.0.1

Can I change my XP host away from 192.168.0.1 to something else ?
(I will probably try later, but, this was exhausting up to this
point.)

No, ICS is not designed to allow changes to the IP address

Can I change my LAN back to 192.168.111.* ?

No, the IP range ICS uses is hardcoded

Why did turning the ICS off on the dialup, then back on, make the
magic difference ?

Not exactly sure, but I have seen this happen. ICS seems to get an unstable
state that is correct by turning it off, then back on.

Is there a registry area controlling the ICS DHCP server, with any
parameters ?

Nope - all hardcoded.


Thanks,
Marc Reynolds
Microsoft Technical Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[khack]

Hi, I have a similar issue, )which I posted in another group, then I
happened upon this thread)...


I am travelling for an extended period, and I have 2 computers in my
vehicle. One (PC#1) is a desktop type, the other (PC#2) is a laptop.
Both run XP Pro.

PC#1 has a PCI wireless card with a high-gain antenna. PC#2 has a
PCMCIA wireless card with a rather poor built-in antenna.

From time to time, we access the Internet by the simple expedient of

searching for an unencryted wireless signal, and (usually), an Internet
connection on the other side of it.

Most often, because of the range, I can get a reasonable signal from
PC#1, but not PC#2.

My question is, how can I access the Internet connection from PC#2,
through PC#1? I have a second (USB) wireless adapter in PC#1, so I
tried setting up an adhoc wireless network between PC#2 and the USB
adapter. This worked fine for file access between the two computers,
but I only had Internet access from PC#1.

I then implemented Internet Connection Sharing on the PCI card in PC#1,
and specified that the home network used the USB adapter. The problem
is that most of the networks that I "borrow" are set up to give out IP
addresses in the ICS range (192.168.0.x). PC#1, effectively my
internal router, sees a conflict of IP addresses.

My specific questions are:

1) Assuming that the unknowing host gives my PC#1 an arbitrary IP
address in the ICS range, and that my PC#1 gives PC#2 an arbitrary but
different address in that same range, should this work? (It doesn't,
but maybe I am doing something else wrong).

2) Is there another Internet connection sharing method that doesn't
need to use 192.168.x.x (and doesn't require extra hardware / expense)?
If so, is there any other reason why setting up PC#1 as an internal
router shouldn't work?

3) Any other suggestions about how I might solve the problem? Again,
without additional hardware / expense!

TIA,

Linda