Remote Access?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Gregory
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J

John Gregory

I added a new machine to my home network last month; a Pentium 4 running
Windows XP Home Edition. It ties in with a Pentium 2 running WIN98SE and a
486 machine running WIN95. All are plugged into a switch which plugs to a
router that connects to a cable modem.

My most used WIN98SE machine (which has a Norton Personal Firewall) has
begun reporting activity attempting to reach that machine. The remote
address given as 0.0.0.0,bootpc(followed by a #) and the local address as
255.255.255.255,bootp(followed by a number).

The report considers the threat High Risk so I continually block it. I've
never experienced such warnings and I don't know how to identify the source
to determine if - perhaps - it's my new machine trying to do something on
the local network. There's only me using these three machines.

One thought that makes me suspect this may be an outside attempt is the fact
that the new machine has been connected for about a month. The messages just
began occurring last week. I suppose there is a chance that I may have
inadvertently triggered these by making some adjustment to a setting on the
new machine that I didn't fully understand.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be very appreciative.
 
This sounds like the new PC broadcasting 'bootstraps' when it is being
booted up. It's not something to worry about. Bootp is a protocol that
allows people like systems administrators to boot a pc off a network to
rebuild it quickly etc.

If you're feeling brave you should be able to disable this in the BIOS of
the new pc - in the boot options change it so that 'network' is after "hard
drive". The exact wording will depend on your BIOS. As I said thoguh, this
is not something to be concerned about.
thx
iain
 
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