Wired and wirelss network compatability

[Adrian Foot]

Hi guys,

I am in the Armed Forces and access the internet through a wireless network.
The network setup is unkown to me other than to say that the company running
it uses nodes in each building and one big wireless antenna in the centre of
our camp. If I connect both my desktop and my laptop to the wireless
network they cannot ping or see each other.

To solve this I have introduced a wired network into the equasion. This is
just between my laptop and desktop computer and involves both systems being
connected via an ethernet switch.

I am experiencing difficulties in getting this setup to work properly. I
obviously set a dynamic IP address for the wireless connection and a static
private address for the wired network. Both network connections seem to
establish with no problems but I cannot access the internet. If I disable
the wired network then the wireless one works fine; they just don't seem to
want to work together and I can't work out why.

I have tried bridging the connections but to no avail and really can't think
of another way round this. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Ady

 

[Malke]

Hi guys,

I am in the Armed Forces and access the internet through a wireless
network. The network setup is unkown to me other than to say that the
company running it uses nodes in each building and one big wireless
antenna in the centre of
our camp. If I connect both my desktop and my laptop to the wireless
network they cannot ping or see each other.

To solve this I have introduced a wired network into the equasion.
This is just between my laptop and desktop computer and involves both
systems being connected via an ethernet switch.

I am experiencing difficulties in getting this setup to work properly.
I obviously set a dynamic IP address for the wireless connection and
a static
private address for the wired network. Both network connections seem
to
establish with no problems but I cannot access the internet. If I
disable the wired network then the wireless one works fine; they just
don't seem to want to work together and I can't work out why.

I have tried bridging the connections but to no avail and really can't
think
of another way round this. Any ideas?

You are doing way too much work just to share files. I assume that's
what you want to do. Take the "wired network" out entirely. Both your
computers are already on the same network, you just need to set up your
file sharing. However, please be aware that if either machine is
running XP Home you will not have good security and any other machine
on the network will be able to share your files. Since you are in a
public situation, you may not want to do this. Use a usb thumbdrive to
transfer files instead.

Here is some general help to get your file sharing set up.

Run the Network Setup Wizard on both computers, making sure to enable
File & Printer Sharing, and reboot. The only "gotcha" is that this will
turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a third-party
firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm Protection" (like
Norton 2005/06) which acts as a firewall, then you're fine. If you have
third-party firewall software, configure it to allow the Local Area
Network traffic as trusted. I usually do this with my firewalls with an
IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would
substitute your correct subnet.

If one or more of the computers is XP Pro:

a. If you need Pro's ability to set fine-grained permissions, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab) and create identical user
accounts/passwords on all computers.

b. If you don't care about using Pro's advanced features, leave the
Simple File Sharing enabled.

Simple File Sharing means that Guest (network) is enabled. This means
that anyone without a user account on the target system can use its
resources. This is a security hole but only you can decide if it
matters in your situation.

Then create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users'
home directories (My Documents) or Program Files, but you can share
folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the
Shared Documents folder.

If you need more help, post back with what your end goal is; i.e., just
file sharing, printer sharing, etc.

Malke

 

[Adrian Foot]

Hello Malke,

Thanks for your reply. You have, however, missed one of the main points I
mentioned. The setup of the wireless network here does not allow computers
to see one another yet alone communicate. If I just connect both to the
wireless network they cannot ping one another and need two seperate accounts
to connect to the internet. This is not what I want to achieve. I want
both computers to be able to speak to each other and share files AND to be
able to share one of the wireless internet connections.

Thanks again for your help - any ideas now?

Ady

 

[Malke]

Hello Malke,

Thanks for your reply. You have, however, missed one of the main
points I
mentioned. The setup of the wireless network here does not allow
computers
to see one another yet alone communicate. If I just connect both to
the wireless network they cannot ping one another and need two
seperate accounts
to connect to the internet. This is not what I want to achieve. I
want both computers to be able to speak to each other and share files
AND to be able to share one of the wireless internet connections.

That doesn't make sense. What does "two separate accounts to connect to
the Internet" mean? Please describe it better. Include the information
for both computers by doing:

Start>Run>cmd [enter]
ipconfig /all [enter]

Malke

 

[Guest]

I met this problem before. So maybe my experience is helpful for you. Check
the IP address of your wireless network card. If its range is
"192.168.0.***", you need to use different IP address range for your wired
network card, for example: "10.0.0.***". Then confirm that you have set the
wireless network to share the internet ( if it is, you can see a little hand
in your wireless network icon) .

 

[Malke]

I met this problem before. So maybe my experience is helpful for you.
Check the IP address of your wireless network card. If its range is
"192.168.0.***", you need to use different IP address range for your
wired
network card, for example: "10.0.0.***". Then confirm that you have
set the wireless network to share the internet ( if it is, you can see
a little hand in your wireless network icon) .

In order to share files, both computers need to be on the same subnet,
not different ones. The OP doesn't need to assign a different subnet to
his wireless card! The fact that one computer connects to the lan
wirelessly and one connects wired is irrelevant *unless* the wired
network is set up separately from the wireless network and we don't
know that.

What we need from the OP to go any further with this is the results of
ipconfig /all on both computers.

Malke

 

[Guest]

If you use window network wizard to set up the network as the following: set
wireless networkcard as your internet port , assigned IP address automaticlly
; set your wired network card as a LAN port ( with another desktop ),
assigned IP address automaticlly. Then for your wired network card, windows
will assign an address as "192.168.0.1" and assign an address as
"192.168.0.***" to your desktop ( if you also run network wizard on your
desktop computer ). Generally a small wireless network will use IP address
range "192.168.0.***" and "192.168.0.1" should be the gateway. So there
should be an IP address "192.168.0.1" in OP's wireless network now. And by
assigning address automaticlly, the IP address of the wireless network card
in the laptop should be "192.168.0.***" and the gateway should be assigned
automaticlly as "192.168.0.1". But if this address is used by the wired
network card, when you these two network cards work together, your internet
request will not go through your wierless network. The request should be sent
to wired card because its address is "192.168.0.1". That is why I said he
should change his wired to another IP address range. Maybe he can only change
the address of the wired card to another address in "192.168.0.***" but can
not be "192.168.0.1".

 

[Malke]

If you use window network wizard to set up the network as the
following: set wireless networkcard as your internet port , assigned
IP address automaticlly ; set your wired network card as a LAN port (
with another desktop ), assigned IP address automaticlly. Then for
your wired network card, windows will assign an address as
"192.168.0.1" and assign an address as "192.168.0.***" to your desktop
( if you also run network wizard on your
desktop computer ). Generally a small wireless network will use IP
address range "192.168.0.***" and "192.168.0.1" should be the gateway.
So there should be an IP address "192.168.0.1" in OP's wireless
network now. And by assigning address automaticlly, the IP address of
the wireless network card in the laptop should be "192.168.0.***" and
the gateway should be assigned automaticlly as "192.168.0.1". But if
this address is used by the wired network card, when you these two
network cards work together, your internet request will not go through
your wierless network. The request should be sent to wired card
because its address is "192.168.0.1". That is why I said he should
change his wired to another IP address range. Maybe he can only change
the address of the wired card to another address in "192.168.0.***"
but can not be "192.168.0.1". "Malke" wrote:

I found this post extremely hard to read. If what you are saying is that
the computer should not have the same IP address as the gateway (which
is not automatically assigned but rather is static since a dynamic IP
address on a gateway would make it unusable) then that is true but not
very useful or applicable to the OP's problem. Nor would it ever happen
in Real Life(tm).

However, since I believe we have a language barrier there really isn't
any point in continuing the discussion. The OP hasn't come back and
unless he does, the thread is closed.

Malke

 

[Adrian Foot]

Gentlemen,

Many thanks for your advice and apologies for my delay in coming back to
you. Malke, here is what you wanted:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : desktop
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Belkin Wireless 54Mbps Desktop
Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-11-50-1D-A9-23
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.131.202
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.131.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 1.41.31.39
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.131.1
192.168.131.1
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 25 May 2006 14:41:14
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 25 May 2006 22:41:14

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network
Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-12-3F-72-19-8D
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

I hope this helps? To confirm what I meant about the internet connection; I
connect to a service provider through the wireless connection. When I run
internet explorer, once connected, I have to logon to the service (that's
what I meant about having two accounts to access the internet).

Thanks again,

Ady

 

[Malke]

Adrian Foot wrote:

(snipped where useful)

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Belkin Wireless 54Mbps
Desktop
Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-11-50-1D-A9-23
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.131.202
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.131.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 1.41.31.39
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.131.1
192.168.131.1

The above means that the wireless connection is on subnet
192.168.131.xxx.

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE
Network
Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-12-3F-72-19-8D
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

The above means that the wired connection is on subnet 192.168.0.xxx and
will never communicate with a computer on subnet 198.168.131.xxx. You
have no Internet connection on the ethernet adapter at all. There is no
gateway and no DNS or DHCP. You would need to set the wired connection
to match the wireless in order to have an Internet connection on it and
to share files between the desktop and the laptop.

However, since the company providing the Internet/network access only
has a wireless connection available to you (no wired switch or router
into which you could plug an ethernet cable), you will not be able to
connect to that service wired at all. You can put a wireless network
adapter into the laptop - either PCI or USB - and connect using the
same subnet, gateway, DNS, and DHCP settings as are on the laptop.

Malke