ISP Block Local NetB?IOS

[Rick]

I can't access a share on my home LAN. It's intermittent. All the LAN
addresses (tcpip) are received from the ISP's DHCP server. One of the
machines can't participate in any netbios communication.

Is it possible the ISP can block NETBIOS on machines connected to a central
hub, such as our LAN setup?

 

[David Robbins]

I can't access a share on my home LAN. It's intermittent. All the LAN
addresses (tcpip) are received from the ISP's DHCP server. One of the
machines can't participate in any netbios communication.

Is it possible the ISP can block NETBIOS on machines connected to a central
hub, such as our LAN setup?

i wouldn't think so. if they all belong to the same network address block
they should be able to talk directly to each other. check their ip
addresses and net masks to make sure they are all in the same address block.
you could also test by just unplugging the hub from your isp, all the
machines should be able to talk to each other without the isp connection.
make sure they can all ping each other also.

if you just have a hub and not a router i would look into getting a router
with a firewall also, relying on your isp to provide a firewall may be a
problem unless that is a specific service they are providing for you and
will gaurantee that your machines won't be accessible from outside (unless
you want them to like for a web server).

 

[Rick]

The addresses don't all belong to the same address block. Should they be
able to use netbios anyway through the local hub?

 

[David Robbins]

not necessarily. if they are in different blocks then to access one machine
from another you would have to go out to your isp's router which will
determine the route to that other address block and then route it back in.
so any filters enabled in the isp's router (like blocking netbios which is a
common thing to do) would affect the connection. without the isp's router
those machines should not be able to talk to each other, so unplugging the
hub should prevent them from even pinging each other.

if you had your own router instead of just a hub you could assign your own
local addresses and not have to rely on the isp's setup for your local
communication.