Home Networking ?

Hey every1, i just have a quick question about networking. ok so i just bought a 4port linksys router to network me and my brother's computer to share my cable modem. now i got it to work to the point that both of us have internet connections, but our computers cannot share files. both computers have windows xp home edition, and i can see both computer names on both computers, but when i try to open my computer's shared folder on his computer, or vice versa, all i get is an error message saying

" \\[computer name] is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.
The network path was not found."

I have run the network setup wizard on both computers, and nothing seems to work. i've been to the linksys website to look for troubleshooting topics for myself, but they don't have anything about win xp, and i went to microsoft website but they tell me to do what i already did. so i'm basically stuck, i'm sure it's something simple to you folks but i'm fairly new to networking. Thanks alot for any help you can give me.

I had the same problem with my network... I turned off my firewall and my problem was solved... As far as keeping the firewall up and sharing files at the same time, I didn't try to figure that out cuz I didn't need both at the same time. Hope that helps a little

Quote:

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\\[computer name] is not accessible.

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You probably dont have any shares. Create a share on one and be sure to give it the proper permissions. Then connect to it using a full UNC, \\computer\share .

Thanks alot you guys, lothar you hit it right on the head, i completely forgot about my firewall, i shut it down and it worked perfectly. i just gotta figure out too now how to leave it on and share at the same time. if anyone knows how to do that, it would also be greatly appreciated. thanks again!

So you are running a software firewall on each of your machines? If you have a software firewall, which one is it? You should be able to configure your firewall to accept all connections from a certain IP address - in your case, it'd be the local IP of the other machine (ex: 192.168.1.100). Then you should be fine...

but don't be a loser and keep your local network under IPX or NetBeui and take off share files service and even microsoft network client from TCP/IP bindings :P

I am running zone labs, the free version on my computer, nothing on my bro's computer yet, kept forgetting to set it up, i will have to look around there to see about accepting certain ip's. i should still run a software firewall right? b/c i thought that the router acted as a firewall itself, do i have to configure it to do so? also what is "IPX" and "NetBeui" are these more software firewalls b/c i've never heard of them b4. thnx again for all the help.

IPX/SPX and NetBeui are protocols. For small networks -home office,... it will be safer to use them, because and attacker who passes your firewall-hardware- will normally expect to find TCP/IP bindings on the share files and prints service, that is, NetBios over TCP/IP. If you don't have NetBios over TCP/IP you will puzzle them a bit :)

Don't use the wizard for networks, I think it does exactly what we don't want, it runs NetBios over TCP/IP.

He is correct you want to install IPX/SPX and netbui on both machines, to share files.

Alos make sure that the logins that you and your bro us have adminstrator priligages.
And like he said make some shares and bingo bango you should be able drag and drop files between the computer and should should not have to have a firewall on your computer the router should have somthing called NAT(network address translation) on it. Basically its a pain in the ass to get past. So you dont really need to have a fire wall on your machine if the router does have NAT. The worst that could happen is they mess up your router and you need to set it back to factory defaults.

so go have fun :)

I am mystified as to how NAT solves his problem of not being able to connect to other computers, but that's just me.

What you should be able to do is configure the firewall such that your one internal IP can connect to the other on all ports (if you want), and then it should not be an issue to run both your firewall on the router and the file sharing on the internal computers...

I don't see why you should be disabling your router's firewall in order to connect to your internal IP addresses, unless A) the linksys firewalls each connection individually, or B) you're running a software firewall, in which case you don't need it at all.

netbui is so annoying and slow... i wouldnt suggest it.

check your shares and turn your firewall back on. if your router can use ipx/spx, use it... it is safer than tcp/ip in that most attackers will try for that...

i'm not exactly sure how to do it with XP, but i belive....
right click on the folder you want to share... share it, set permissions as to what user can access what.... that should work.

I am sorry if I was not clear, I ment to say that having NAT on his router means that he does not have to have a firewall on his computer, I did not mean that he should disable the firewall on the router, The NAT will not interfere with any internal traffic anyway its only between the WAN and the LAN port,

As I under stood he had a zone alarm on his computer as well,
so I was saying that he did not need to have any firewalls on his machines,
And he can share the files with netbui, or what ever he wants to do. It was just a suggestion,


Sorry if I was wrong I am just too lazy to read the rest of the posts,


I am sorry when I was writing my last post I was getting pulled away to do some work, I guess those tier 1 could not see that I was busy :)
hehe