Router and Windows Mapped Network Drive

[wjsulliv]

I had to install a router within my workgroup today because one of the machines was having trouble finding an open IP address (i.e. the network is getting too big) and because I wanted to add a wireless client.

However, I can't seem to access my mapped network drive. I figure that this is a result of the router being installed between me and the network drive. However I can't navagate to the section of the network where the drive is to remap it?

Any ideas? How do I browse a network on the other side of my router? Everything on this side of the router works like normal.

Thanks

 

[azev]

Do you have any name resolution service on you network ?? a DNS or WINS should solve your problem.
First of all though, make sure you can ping the computer on the other network to see if you setup the gateway correctly.

 

[wjsulliv]

azev,

I don't know if we have a DNS inside the network. However, in the TCP/IP settings there are two DNS servers listed which are on the same domain (or close, both 10.114.xxx.xxx). Is that what you were looking for or are those just for resolving www addresses?

Also I don't know the IP of the machine that is hosting the mapped drive. I'm just trying to trouble shoot a mapped folder that someone else setup... I know the folder is looking for '\\HALL\HALL'. Is there a way to ping based on name instead of IP?

I haven't tried to pint to the other side of the router... But I should be able to ping something like www.cisco.com and if I get a response everything is ok right?

Thanks

 

[azev]

When your computer try to ping a computer using their name without the existance of DNS or WINS server, your computer will broadcast to find the destination computer. If the destination computer located on a different network, the router that seperates the two network will drop your broadcast paket. You are going to need a WINS or DNS server that keeps record of both network. This way when a computer try to ping the computer name, the name resolution will take place (either DNS or WINS) and resolve the destination computer IP address.

My first solution is try to find an IP address of a computer on your other network then try to ping it from your machine using its IP address. If you got no reply, try to ping your gateway(router) to see if you get a reply. If you do , do it from the other network, ping your machine using its IP address to see if you get a reply, if you dont then the gateway/router.
If you do have a connection (have no problem pinging computer on the other network) then all you need is a DNS or WINS server.

How many computer is in your network ?
What is the router that seperate the network ?
Do you have a server / domain controller ?? what OS??

I hope this helps

 

[wjsulliv]

The OS is Win 95. The computer is part of my wifes grade school system, so I don't have the ability to alter any computers outside her room (like adding a DNS etc.).

The class room had a switch connecting 4 computers to a cable in the wall. One of the machines constantly got errors that it couldn't find an open IP address, and my wife just got a wireless card for her laptop. So since I had an extra D-Link DI-711 wireless router I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and get her laptop to work wirelessly in the class room and get the computer's IP problem resolved.

However, one of the programs ("Star Reader") uses a mapped network folder. So I have to get beyond the router to get to the network computer... And nobody will give me the IP address of the '\\HALL\HALL' machine because they won't want to support me doing this.

Is there a way in 95 or XP (I can take my laptop in and trouble shoot the system) to get the IP address of a computer that you know by name? I.e. can I do a nslookup in XP if I was on the public side of the router. And then setup the router to let request thru from that IP address?

I'm thinking this has to do with the built in firewall in the router?



I suppose I could put the switch back in place and connect it to the one computer with Star Reader and to the Router. Then it would be on the correct side of the router to avoid this problem...


Thanks

 

[EricT]

How many pc's on the "new" network (= the other side of the router) ? If there are only a couple, and their number won't be growing any time soon, then your best bet is to just create some lmhosts files on those pc's.

First thing you need to do is figure out the ip address of the \\hall machine, which is something you will only bee able to do from a machine on the same side of the router as the hall workstation. You can try doing a "ping hall" in a dos box, and with a bit of luck that will work and give you the ip address of the server. If this does not work, do a "net view \\hall" in the same dos box, followed by a "nbtstat -c". The first command should list the shares of the \\hall server (hal should be listed as a "Disk" type resource). The second command displays the netbios name cache which should now contain the name & IP address of the infamous \\hall machine.

On the workstations that are not able to map a drive to \\hall create a file called hosts (no extension) and an identical one called lmhosts (again no extension) and make sure the file looks like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.168.100 hall

On a windows 95-98-ME machine, both hosts and lmhosts must be saved in the c:\windows directory. On Win2K-XP that should be c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc (there should already be a sample hosts file and a file called lmhosts.sam in that directory).

As soon as both files exist (no reboot required) you should be able to ping the server (thanks to the "hosts" file) and map a network drive to it (thanks to the lmhosts file).

Personally I would not recommend this solution if you are talking about dozens of machines to manually update. In that case I would agree with azev that DNS or WINS are the way to go.

 

[wjsulliv]

There will be no more than 6 machines on the inside of the router. Only one of these machines has to get out to \\hall\hall, and that box is a Win 95 box.

Just to claify EricT's post:
On the Win 95 box in the 'c:\windows' directory I should create 2 files hosts and lmhosts, neither one has an extension and box have the same exact content:
127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.168.100 hall

I'm a little fuzzy on where you got the IP Addreses of localhost and hall. I'm guessing the IP addresses are the result of the 'ping hall', 'net view \\hall', and 'nbtstat -c' commands.
Can you clarify which result I should use for localhost and which I should use for hall?

Thanks

 

[EricT]

The local host address is the so-called IP loopback address. If you ping or use any other IP related command to address 127.0.0.1 then it will always try to communicate with the machine you issue the command on. This is nice to know, because now you can already check if a machine has a working IP stack by just pinging 127.0.0.1.

The entry in the hosts and lmhosts file for "localhost" servers no other purpose than to be able to use the name localhost instead of the address 127.0.0.1. For your network drive problem, it is completely irrelevant wether you add that entry or not. I just mentioned it because it is an entry in the Microsoft sample hosts and lmhosts file.

I just made up an IP address for HALL and put it in the private IP addres range of 192.168.x.y because a lot of small networks use this type of addressing (because a lot of SOHO routers come with these address ranges pre-configured). You need to find the "real" address of HALL by temporarily removing your router and plugging a pc back into the other network. This pc will then be able to use the ping or net view / nbtstat commands described to determine the address of HALL.

You can try pinging HALL before you unplug the router, but probably that won't work...

You are right in stating that the built-in firewall will cause some issues so you may have to disable it (if possible). I don't think it will be though because usually these things are pre-configured to allow all traffic that is a response to something initiated by the internal lan. This means that HALL won't be able to initiate communication with your workstation, but your wife's laptop should be able to map a drive and use HALL without any problem (because her pc is then the initiator of the communication, Hall would just be responding to her requests).

Make sure to leave NAT enabled on the router! If you disable NAT between the new network and the existing one, then the machines or the routers on the existing network need to "be aware" of your router (for example use your router as their default gateway) otherwise they will never be able to communicate to "the other side".
NAT (network address translation) solves this problem for you in that it makes all the machines on the existing network believe that they are communicating with your router (which does have an address in the "existing" lan) rather than with the actual pc wich is located on the "other" network.

In short :
- unplug the router
- plug a pc into the existing network
- find the ip address of HALL (through ping or net view + nbtstat)
- re-install the router
- create hosts & lmhosts in the c:\windows directory of the win95 pc
- it should work...

Let me know how you get on.

 

[wjsulliv]

Ok, so I finally got out to the school this weekend and no go.

Plugged in my XP laptop to the network (without the router) and got the address of Hall as 10.114.0.2.
Then plugged the router back in, fired up the Win '95 machine and changed the hosts and lmhosts to read the following
127.0.0.1 localhost
10.114.0.2 hall

Then I tried to map the drive, I tried to ping, etc. And all I get is the following result:
C:\>ping HALL
Bad IP address HALL.

Any other ideas? Or should I just move the Win'95 machine to the other side of the router perminantly?

 

[wjsulliv]

Bump...