Windows XP ICS Problems

[Donato]

Hello,

I'm having problem with Windows XP ICS. Prior to XP I used linux for ICS and it worked extremely well using IP masquerading. At this point I have to rely on XP to share my internet connection with one other PC also running XP. The problem here is that on the other PC certain sites are inaccessible. Such as tucows.com, festivalbar.it, getemail.com, and some others. On the main PC, the PC hosting the internet connection, these sites work just fine.

Does anyone have a solution that can help me?
Thank you.

 

[rjkrash]

Try turning off the firewall Control Panel>Network Connections>Properties of NIC>Advanced (tab)>Clear Protect...
The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.

 

[BMorey]

The firewall is not the problem. Do not turn off the firewall. I have seen several ill-informed recommendations in various forums to turn off the firewall by people who do not know what they are talking about.

I had a similar problem to that described and it turned out to be DNS on the client PC (running Win98SE). Firstly, can you ping the problematic sites from the client PC? If so, obviously the firewall is not a problem and it is likely to be DNS.

 

[rjkrash]

Bmorey,
Did you see the word - try. It wasn't a recommendation for a life threatening operation! just a first step.
We were provided limited information and I took a stab in the dark because I have seen people mistakenly enable ICF on the client and have seen similar behavior from such incorrect configurations.

Donoto,

How do you conenct to the Internet from the ICS host?, A router, modem, router/hub to modem? How is the client connected to the host? HUB, DCC, if DCC what kind of connection, Xover cable, USB, Parallel, wireless. Do you have more than one NIC in the host? Is there a bridge from your LAN connection to the Internet connection? Have you run ipconfig /all on both systems and what does it report? (ipconfig might point you to the DNS issue Bmorey mentioned) All questions that if answered and posted could help diagnose the problem.

I guess I could have been clearer, I intended that ICF be turned off on the machine having problems accessing sites. That was the computer having access problems. It was the client not the ICS host, right?

BTW even if you can ping a site and get a response it doesn't mean the firewall is properly configured.

I quote from MS's own documentation:

You should not enable Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) on any connection that does not directly connect to the Internet. If the firewall is enabled on the network adapter of an ICS client computer, it will interfere with some communications between that computer and all other computers on the network.

further from MS:
Because ICF inspects all incoming communications, some programs, especially e-mail programs, may behave differently when ICF is enabled. You mentioned getemail.com.


Also, and this is for Bmorey's info is another stab in the dark not an "ill-informed reccomendation", - If your network has multiple firewall connections, service definitions must be configured for each firewalled connection you want the service to work through.



The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.