Restrict our home network to specific PCs/users

B

Bill W

When friends come to the house, I like to give them access to the internet
via our wireless router. I do not want them to see any of our computers on
our home network - especially the shared folders. Is there a way to give
them access to the internet only and not include them in any way in our
local home network family of computers? All of our computers require user
codes and passwords and they all have the same work group name. We have 1
Vista computer and 2 XP computers. Thank you.
 
L

Lem

Bill said:
When friends come to the house, I like to give them access to the
internet via our wireless router. I do not want them to see any of our
computers on our home network - especially the shared folders. Is there
a way to give them access to the internet only and not include them in
any way in our local home network family of computers? All of our
computers require user codes and passwords and they all have the same
work group name. We have 1 Vista computer and 2 XP computers. Thank you.

If you've set your user accounts appropriately with passwords, that
should prevent the other computers on your LAN from accessing files. For
even more security, see MVP Jack's description of setting up a
segregated local network. You'll have to buy another router, but it
doesn't have to be a very fancy one. http://www.ezlan.net/shield.html

Note that in Jack's description, the "segregated" or secure network is
wired. You can make it wireless (see penultimate paragraph on Jack's
page). If you do so, I suggest using channel 1 for one wireless router
and channel 11 for the other.

Alternately, you could simply disable "file and printer sharing" on your
own computers temporarily, while your guests are there.
 
G

Guest

Bill,

In your 'workgroup' you can set the shares to not 'everyone' to see them but
who you want
 
B

Bill W

Thank you for your help. I think I understand, but I'm a little confused
about what happens when I select a user name and not "everyone." For my
clarification, assume that I want to share a folder on computer A and
computer A has a user name of spamcop. I only want to share the file with
computer B. I set permissions on computer A to only share with spamcop and
not with "everyone." I'm assuming that if computer B also has a user name
of spamcop, it can see A's share. If computer C has a different user name,
it cannot see the share. If my assumption of how to implement your
suggestion is correct, then any guest's computer without the user name of
spamcop would not be able to see the share on computer A. Do I understand
this correctly? I can see how to set these permissions on my Vista
computer, but it's my understanding that I can only do this on XP Home if
I'm in safe mode because that's the only way to see the security tab. It
that correct?

Again, thank you very much for your help. I really appreciate it. I've
always wondered how this worked in application, but now that I'd like to use
it, I realize I don't understand it as well as I thought I did.

Bill
 
B

Bill W

If 2 computers have the same user name, allowing them to see each other's
shares, do they have to have the same password? Thanks again.
 
J

John Wunderlich

SPAMCOP User said:
Bill,

In your 'workgroup' you can set the shares to not 'everyone' to
see them but who you want

If 2 computers have the same user name, allowing them to see each
other's shares, do they have to have the same password? Thanks
again.

First of all, to do user level authentication, your XP machines must be
XP-Pro machines (not XP-Home machines) _and_ you must have "Simple File
Sharing" disabled. Otherwise all shared access is through the "Guest"
account and you have no user-level security.

Given that... if you try to connect to another machine and:
o an identical user exists on the target machine and passwords match
- Then access is granted
o an identical user exists on target machine and passwords don't match
- Then access is denied
o no identical user exists on target machine
- A user/password login prompt appears.

For each file/folder, you can specify which users may access them and
in what capacity. Right-click on the file/folder -> Security and set
appropriately.

HTH,
John
 
B

Bill W

John,

Thank you for the reply. My XP computers are XP home. For clarification,
in your reply, does everything following "Given that..." apply to XP home.
Thanks again.

 
J

John Wunderlich

First of all, to do user level authentication, your XP machines
John,

Thank you for the reply. My XP computers are XP home. For
clarification, in your reply, does everything following "Given
that..." apply to XP home. Thanks again.

No.

"Given That" implies that you have XP Pro with Simple File Sharing
disabled. XP Home enforces Simple File Sharing. This means that
every network connection to that machine authenticates via the
"Guest" account. You cannot use user level access controls with
Simple File Sharing. Either everyone has access or no one has
access.

As a lesser-level of security that may work in your case... If you
share a folder and end the _share name_ of that folder with a dollar
sign ($) then that share should not be visible on the network. It is
still there and can still be accessed by anyone if they supply the
correct name (including the $) but it shouldn't show up in the
visible lists.

HTH,
John
 
B

Bill W

Thank you very much. I think the $ option will work for me just fine and
will be a good solution. Thanks again. I really appreciate your help.
 
B

Bill W

John,

Sorry for this dumb question, but I can see how to add the $-share file in
XP, but can't see how to add it in Vista. Any help you can offer would be
appreciated. Thanks
 
J

John Wunderlich

John,

Sorry for this dumb question, but I can see how to add the $-share
file in XP, but can't see how to add it in Vista. Any help you
can offer would be appreciated. Thanks

Probably not such a dumb question. I only have experience in XP.
Perhaps you can ask the question in a Vista group.

-- John
 

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