DirecTV DSL and Netgear RP114 Router troubles 1

[wlwoman]

I am running a RedHat 7.2 server and a Win 98 PC. They are connected through a Netgear RP114 router to a DirecTV DSL gateway.

*The router IP is 192.168.0.1; server 192.168.0.3 and Winbox 192.168.0.2
*Each of the computers is able to connect to the internet
*The winbox is able to connect to the server via telnet and ftp

*The server does not show up in the network neighborhood listing for Windows.
*The server is not accessible from outside the network.
*Ports have been opened on the server for httpd, ftp, telnet, mail, etc.
*Filters have been configured to Action=Forward for incoming requests on the configured ports.

The main goal is to get the server to go live again. Secondary is the question of the linux box not showing up in the winbox's 'neighborhood'

 

[RhythmAce]

I think if you add NetBEUI to the protocols the NIC uses, Windows may start seeing the other machine on the network. You may have to remember where you put your win98 cd to add the protocol though ) The other stuff is WAY over my head.

 

[fluid11]

Post the top part (global config) of your smb.conf file...

Are you running a firewall (iptables/ipchains) on your server?

Chris

 

[wlwoman]

Chris: There's no firewall installed on the server.

RhythmAce: Netbeui is installed and still no go.

I also tried to set up a network printer but the linux box can't seem to find it. The printer is set up as a network printer, with a password.

If I try to surf to the server's IP, it times out. If I try to surf to the router address, which is server IP +1, it tries to log me into the netgear setup page.

The domain name IP is xxx.xxx.xx.40 (assigned by ISP)
The DSL gateway DNS is xxx.xxx.xx.41 (assigned by ISP)
The router internal address is 192.168.0.1
The PC internal IP is 192.168.0.2
The linux box internal is 192.168.0.3

 

[cyoung]

NetBeui is not needed for Samba to work (it is not a good idea to use it ever - as it does not play well with others.)

Lets approach these issues 1 at a time:

Samba:
1. Make sure that smbd and nmbd are running on your Linux box.
2. Shutdown and restart your Windows machine (sometimes this is all it takes)
3. Try to connect to your Samba box from the windows command line (net use h: \\servername\sharename) Sometimes servers won't show up in the Network Neighborhood

As to connecting to your machine from outside the network, you will either need a friend or a dial-up connection to troubleshoot:
1. Make sure that you are not running a firewall on the Linux box (you can configure and turn on later if needed)
2. Make sure that your Linux box will accept connections from outside your current network.
3. Try pinging the server from your dial-up connection (you will ping the gateways IP address and then the port - not the internal lan IP)
4. Try resetting the router and re-configuring the services you want to pass through - do them 1 at a time, so you can track individual problems instead of the whole thing at once.

Good Luck!

 

[wlwoman]

Let's talk Samba - I've never set it up before. Where do I start (and finish) with that? Is the RH manual sufficient to get me through the setup?

Update on the webserver issue: the configuration as it stood was correct. Unfortunately, the ISP gave me an incorrect IP number; corrected and connected.

Thank you again - thank you everyone who always pushes me through the simplest baby steps when what I really want to do is run marathons.

 

[cyoung]

The documentation that comes with Samba is a little confusing for a first time install. I would suggest that you install SWAT and configure your Samba Server using the Web-based interface that it provides.

There are several great books available on Samba if you want to learn to take advantage of its full capabilities.

The main things to do when configuring Samba are as follows:

1. Define the information in the Globals section of your smb.conf file
2. Define the homes info in the smb.conf file
3. Make sure that you have a user setup for samba (can be done with swat, or at the command line using smbpasswd -a)
4. shutdown and restart smbd and nmbd
5. restart the windows machine

PS - do not use the default smb.conf file that is installed by default - it will confuse you greatly if this is your first time as a Samba user

Good Luck and enjoy!

 

[wlwoman]

Ok - I have Samba running - sort of. I can see the server in my Network Neighborhood, but I haven't figured out how to map the Linux directories to the share directories. I haven't figured out how to network the printer so it will actually work, although that too shows up as a network printer in my Network Neighborhood. When I try to add users, Windows tells me the list is not available at this time and to try again later. This may be a ghost problem from another network that was previously configured on the Win box.

I am considering deleting the existing Samba setup and starting over again but I'm not sure I'll do any better the next time! Of course, unless the shares don't show up in N.N., how can I do worse than a Samba server that doesn't really do anything I need it to do?

I'm running Win '98 and RedHat 7.2, Samba 2.2.1 - if anyone has a similar setup that actually networks, could you please point me in the right direction?

 

[cyoung]

Here are a few examples of shares:

In order to share a users home directory, setup the following under the [globals] section in smb.conf

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
writable = yes
browsable = no

[public]
comment = Public Directory
path = /tmp
writable = yes

The home directories section is will automatically share the users home directory (/home/username).

The public section will share the files located in /tmp

As to printers, the way to get them working is as follows:
1. Make sure that the printer is installed and working on the linux box
2. Setup a section in the smb.conf file as follows:
[printers]
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = yes
browseable = no

This should allow you to print.

When you are adding users, you do not do this in windows. You either do this as root on the linux box, or as root through SWAT.

Hope this helps!

 

[wlwoman]

Okay, here I am and not a bunch of progress made. I can map shares to my Win 98 box and see the directory structure, but can't browse the network. Regardless of which folder I try to open, I'm told it doesn't exist.

I've run all the diagnostics in DIAGNOSTICS.TXT and gotten satisfactory results. The machines see and recognize each other, so where to go from here.

I have WINS enabled on the winbox with the linbox 192.168.x.x IP listed as the WINS server. A copy of my smb.conf file (slightly edited to protect the innocent) follows:
**********************************************

[global]
workgroup = workgroup
netbios name = JOESGUYS
server string = Samba Server
encrypt passwords = Yes
smb passwd file = /etc/smbpasswd
log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
max log size = 50
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
path = /
write list = joestuff,joeblow,user1,user2,user3,root,@workgroup
valid users = joestuff,joeblow,user1,user2,user3,root,@workgroup
read only = No
printing = lprng
case sensitive = Yes
mangle case = Yes
hide dot files = No
map system = Yes
map hidden = Yes
os level = 33
local master = Yes
preferred master = Yes
wins support = Yes
browseable = Yes
[mine]
path = /
comment = mine
browseable = Yes
writeable = Yes


[public]
path = /home/joeblow/public
comment = test directory
browseable = Yes
writeable = Yes

 

[RhythmAce]

If I can put my 2 cents in, I don't think this is a samba problem because you've tried everyconfiguration known to mankind. Now mind you, this is just a shot in the dark but do you have ports 137-139 open on your router? 137 and 138 should be open to UDP traffic and 139 open to TCP traffic. What makes me think this is that the 2 machines list each other because they are told to. But in real life they can't reach each other. Sounds a little nuts but that's the kinda guy I am. ) good luck.

 

[wlwoman]

The answer to the 137/139 question is yes, indeed. Those are the ports open for UDP/TCP. There is a diagnostic which I also ran to to check that from telnet. Good idea but it has to be something else.

An oft-repeated (and completely misunderstood by me)line from my smb.log:

[2002/05/23 02:37:41, 0] smbd/connection.c:yield_connection(62) yield_connection: tdb_delete failed with error Record does not exist.

 

[wlwoman]

Gee, that didn't take long - just a month to get the problem resolved. In view of my experience with this issue, I suggest the following:

1. Run the diagnostics program on your NIC (mine failed the loopback test and it cost me $20 and about 15 minutes to resolve this problem).

2. Read before you configure! The man pages aren't written for someone unfamiliar with Linux. I recommend 2 sites for people who are new to Linux/Windows networking:

Configuring Windows Clients
"

http://samba.gorski.net/samba/oreilly/using_samba/ch03_01.html"

Yin Zhang article at Linux Newbie Org
"

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/network/samba/samba3.html"

I used a combination of configs that seems to have worked out very well.

3. Use Webmin to configure but read enough documentation to understand just what you're configuring! While command line configuration may be the mark of a real man, I prefer the kinder, gentler, and user-friendly interface presented by Webmin.

4. Run the diagnostics - all of them! Find out what's working and what isn't. A failed ping sent from the winbox to the linbox alerted me to network card and config problems. The article below is a good indication that the book is worth buying!

Hour 13
"

http://us1.samba.org/samba/ftp/docs/Samba24Hc13.pdf"

5. Find resources!! Find someone (or lots of someones like on Tek-Tips) who really understands Linux and/or Linux/Windows networking and do some brain-picking. I have a friend who's been working Linux a lot longer than I have plus a bud in the IT department at work who runs the company network as well as a Linux/Windows network at home.

Again, thanks to everyone who pushed me in the right direction!