Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Shreveport, LA
Posts: 2936

Home Networking

I'd like to connect two computers together to share files and a cable internet connection. One runs XP, the other 98. What do I need to do this without having to buy a bunch of hubs, routers, and other junk?

I was told elsewhere that I would need two ethernet cards in the xp box and a crossover cable to connect to the 98's ethernet card. Is this correct?

Also, is it possible to run the 98 box through the XP's software firewall for internet connections? The 98 only has 64mb ram and has a tendency to freak out when running a firewall. (I found this out before I bought the newer model.)

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beatrice, Nebraska
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You could do a direct NIC to NIC connection. Or a serial/parallel line connection.

Or buy a hub. I see 'em advertised by Best Buy and Circuit City for around $60 - $80 for a four port hub (I believe it was) that could do internet sharing and stuff.

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Registered: Jul 2000
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I was told elsewhere that I would need two ethernet cards in the xp box and a crossover cable to connect to the 98's ethernet card. Is this correct?

Yea.

Also, is it possible to run the 98 box through the XP's software firewall for internet connections? The 98 only has 64mb ram and has a tendency to freak out when running a firewall. (I found this out before I bought the newer model.)

On the old nt boxes, the ip filters would only work for the machine that they were configured on. If an nt box were routing, the filters would not be applied if the traffic was destined for another computer. Your win98 box shouldn't see any undesirable traffic while it is sitting behind the xp box that is running Internet Connection Sharing. The xp box will absorb all of the internet's abuse (because it will be the only one that is directly reachable from the internet) and only pass good traffic to the win98 box. You might find that, without being exposed to all of the noise out there, the win98 box can run zone alarm (which I recommend for controlling your outbound traffic).

I'd encourage you to get one of the cheap dsl/cable routers. They require llittle to no configuration and are very cheap to purchase and operate

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: WDM, IA
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"Or a serial/parallel line connection."

- I ought to kick you in the pancreas for suggesting such a thing.

Registered: Nov 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 4736

Why? Laplink parallel cables rocked.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beatrice, Nebraska
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quote:

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Originally posted by The Wraith
"Or a serial/parallel line connection."

- I ought to kick you in the pancreas for suggesting such a thing.

---

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Shreveport, LA
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Thanks for the advice, guys. I'm definatly going to look into it.

I did try the serial/parallel port connection. That was a joke. Niether one could find each other. After a half hour of that nonsense I decided on something better.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

What you were originally told was true, so if you have those parts laying around, you might as well do it that way, even though routers are cheap, if you don't need one, you could spend the money on something else. In fact, I have the same set up, XP box, two ethernet cards, and a 98 laptop, crossover cable, they share it all. Might want to run zonealarm or something on the 98 box though, hell you might want to run something besides xp's built in firewall on the xp box. I haven't heard any specifics on the XP firewall, but do you really want to trust a built in microsoft product to protect you?

-m

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Shreveport, LA
Posts: 2936

I got a great deal on the extra nic card and a crossover cable. $12 for both including shipping. Both are brand new still wrapped up. I'll report back when they arrive whether it's working or not.

I am running a firewall atm on the xp box, Sygate. It seems to work pretty well and unbelivably lets me run the xp built in firewall at the same time. (The only bitch I have with XP's built in firewall is that I have to turn it off when sending DCC on Mirc, or while using WinMx. For some reason it won't let either send but yet recieves no problem.) Not that it bothers me really, who in the hell wants to peruse 1,800+ shared AD&D, and classic rock files?

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Shreveport, LA
Posts: 2936

I can't get this these motherfucking boxes to work right to save my ass!

I installed the new nic card in my xp box and linked the two boxes together. The nic installed no problem. I have tried running the connection wizard enough times i'm sick of it. They see each other but yet they don't. The xp box tells me when the 98 box has restarted, and once the 98 box bitched when i tried to assign static ip addresses (something about conflicting addresses). Add to it, the xp box showed the 98 one time and after that, nada. They see themselves in the Network nieghborhood settings but not each other. The xp box says I don't have permission to access the 98 box when i tell it to find computers on the network.

Also, the 98 box can get on the internet through the xp box, but ONLY when i have turned Sygate off. And this despite me using the network neighborhood settings in the Sygate program to allow full access. Needless to say, turning off the firewall is not a option.

Step by step, what do i need to do to get this running? I have read so many conflicting ways to get it going that my head is spinning. What is a quaranteed way to go about it?

I have tried everything including talking dirty to them. Nothing seems to work!

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Registered: Jul 2000
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It seems like you are almost all the way there now. I don't know anything about configuring the sygate firewall to allow traffic from other computers to come through. You should email them for some support.

Assuming that you've made shares on teh windows 98 box and assuming that you left the permissions to the default settings (full control for everybody), I'd blame that problem on the Sygate firewall too.

Last edited by splAt on 10-10-2002 at 12:45 PM

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

1) Make sure they are both in the same workgroup.

2)make sure the nic card in the xp box that goes to the 98 box is 192.168.0.1

3) Make sure the 98 box ethernet card is assigned to 192.168.0.xxx

that is all you should need for the machines to talk to eachother. If you're having problems, like splat said, the firewall is likely your problem, if you can't get it configured, get a different firewall. I can't tell you how to configure sygate's firewall, because I don't use it.

-m

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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: ...The Basement. Duh.
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quote:

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Originally posted by SocialParasite
You could do a direct NIC to NIC connection. Or a serial/parallel line connection.

Or buy a hub. I see 'em advertised by Best Buy and Circuit City for around $60 - $80 for a four port hub (I believe it was) that could do internet sharing and stuff.

---

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Registered: Sep 2001
Location: A Whale's Vagina!
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i had a similar setup but instead of running a static IP i just used netbuei and it automatically assigned ip's.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Shreveport, LA
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I got it working, sorta.

The 98 box can see and access the xp's folders after I ran the setup wizard again and mapped the drives with sygate off. It can also access the internet through both the xp box's builtin firewall as well as Sygate Pro, (after I turned it back on with the anti-IP spoofing turned off.) However, the xp box is totally blind when it comes to the 98 box. (It doesn't even connect to the 98 when neither firewall is running.)
I am using Tcp/Ip protocols on both with netbios enabled over them. The xp box must have a static ip address assigned to it, and the 98 box must be set to automatic or it doesn't work. (I've tried every configeration you can imagine and this is the only one that has succeded.) When I ran ipconfig on the 98 box, I got it's ip number and the xp box was able to ping it successfully, (this is a problem because the 98 box will change it's ip adress everytime it boots under the automatic setting, will it not?) What can I do to get the xp box to take notice of the 98's C drive?
I have also noticed that the 98 has a bit of trouble accessing certain folders on the xp. When I've gone a few levels into it's shared folders, there are a few that say access denied unless I specifically allow sharing on that folder. Is this normal?

I've read quite abit about netbuei and I would probably try it if I could find the two files it uses. (I have read that it's on the XP disk, but all I have is three crappy recovery disks.) Can it be found on a 98 install disk? (Or internet possibly?)

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Registered: Jul 2000
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To add netbeui, you would go to the connection where you want it (found under the properties of "my network places" (what a gay fucking name)) and add it there. Netbeui will not automatically assign ip addresses. It has nothing to do with tcp/ip. It is its own independent protocol. Netbeui also should not work with internet connection sharing by itself. Internet connection sharing needs tcp/ip to work.

To see if you are having a netbios name resolution problem that keeps your winxp box from seeing your win98 box, you might try to access the windows 98 box like this from the command line:
net use \\(windows98 box ip address)\(share name on the windows 98 box).
If you have a share called picturesofsplat on your computer with an ip of 10.10.10.1, it would be:
net use \\10.10.10.1\picturesofsplat.
I encourage you not to put spaces in the share name. You can, but I'm uncertain of the syntax for connecting to them.

If you can connect to it like that, you can use the same approach to make permanent mappings and stop troubleshooting there, or, if you like, you can try to determine why the windows xp box cannot reach it using the netbios name. I would not expect the ip address of the win 98 box to change if it was powered up every day, but, if it turned out that it was getting a new ip address occaisionally, you could configure it with a static address and put in the required information for default gateway and dns servers. To get the information for the ip configuration, go to the command line and type ipconfig/all. That will tell you your current ip address, default gateway, and your dns servers. You can just put all of that in permanently and it should work until your isp changes the ip of their dns servers.

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Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:

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Originally posted by splAt
(found under the properties of "my network places" (what a gay fucking name))

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

Personally, I'm happy with "Network" but I'm oversimplified like that.

I don't know why it would want the 98 box to use apipa, in fact I can't see how that would work.

ICS uses 192.168.0.xxx ip's. The gateway, the machine connecting to the internet, needs to to use 192.168.0.1, and the other machines, anything within the same subnet. I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble, I've set this up more than once, on multiple networks, without too much trouble, excepting the time my rather and I spent 4 hours tracking down cable and hub troubles, but that was all hardware.

-m

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Shreveport, LA
Posts: 2936

I finally got the damn network up and going. I did have to use Netbeui to get them to see each other for more than a minute. (Finding that thing was a bitch. The only link I could find for awhile there was on Compaq's site but it applied to only their laptops.)

Anyway, I got it and it worked like a charm. I even got them to join into a LAN Mechwarrior 3 game together. (I hate admitting it but thats pretty much why I wanted to get this network up and running. I've been wanting to wax my brother Gooberclese's ass at it for years. Next step is to get Combat Flight Sim going so I can shoot his ass down there too.!)

I appreciate the help. I really do. I'd about worried myself into a lather over this for the last few days. I even went as far as reformatting the 98 box and reinstalling. For awhile there I was a cussin like a sailor and beating on these boxes like retarded circus monkies.

Thanks again!

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