crappy network setup - only access to 1 machine & router

whoops · 2009-06-02 14:04:52

Hi!

I'm going insane with the shared internet access / network at my other Desktop. I've got access only to my machine and the router.

There are a few (2-5 different) PC's, mostly Windows XP that have access and they often ruin the network and the internet connection. It is NOT windows, it is the way it's configured (= not at all - I think everyone has just been clicking around in the "network assistant" and interchanging "network installation disks" until someone was able to acces youtube and yelled "Hooray!!!" ). I don't need access to any other machine, but when I "probe around" I find stuff like "recursively auto-mounted network folders between machines of different workgroups trying to backup each others infinitely long subfolder tree" and stuff like that. 2 machines constantly try to grab each others IP, a Laptop is spamming wlan not being able to connect 90% of the time... I think you got the idea. Sometimes Internet access seems totally block, although noone is getting any uo/down.

Now - I really can only maintain my machine and the router. I only have wlan access to the router and my PC is not on 24/7 (more like 15/6 ) Is there anything (besides changing the password and locking everyone else out ) I can to to improve standard behaviour a little bit?

- Like try to force my machine as Samba Server whenever it is on and force a limit max. subfolder level... or even a WORKGROUP everyone must use... I thing those machines are configured to connect to pretty much everything and I heard that linux can be a bit stubborn, when It wants to be the network host, so there might be an option...?
- Are there any ports I should tell the router to block internally to stop or slow down some of the weird stuff that might be going on between the other PC's?
- I think it's not possible to have the router block "cascaded access" - or is there? Sometimes the other PC's seem to be connecting "serially" and/or even doing "connect to internet via other PC"-circles... no idea how exactly.

Someone send me a satellite with independent, fast and real flat Internet access...

Last edited by whoops (2009-06-02 14:09:06)

revellion · 2009-06-04 10:43:21

Why not simply untangle the mess on each machine?. surely that shouldn't be impossible. or are there any "political" reasons you can't ?

JF · 2009-06-05 00:21:33

Hi revellion,

If you can't interfere with the others desktops and you don't need to access them, maybe the router can help you: If it has QoS or VLAN features maybe you can isolate or prioritize some of the traffic. If the router has a firewall, make sure it blocks incoming and outgoing SMB/CIFS traffic because misconfigured/infected Windows machines advertise their shares to Internet and spam the network with scans in order to find new targets.

Sorry about the pain it's causing you but your story is quite funny

whoops · 2009-06-05 10:28:45

Yeah, it is sort of funny.

I theoretically could "untangle the mess on each machine" if I wanted to and took the time, but what I definitely couldn't do is keeping them that way longer than until the next "javagame" that needs a "special browser bar" comes out or someone finds an old WLAN stick in a drawer ("Weeee, me got 2 Internet Connections in my PC now!"). It doesn't really make sense to spend hours installing, cleaning, customizing an XP Desktop for someone who's used to getting along just fine by himself as long as there's no vital data on the PC and it can be reinstalled every time something breaks within 20 Minutes (+ max. 15 Minutes for "Network Setup"). Don't forget, that there are still people who are happy that that's possible like this.

As for QoS: thanks for mentioning it! That thing keeps "mysteriously disappearing" on the XP machines since someone discovered, that "it slows down Internet!!!". Gotta look trough the routers features again and learn stuff about VLAN... I think incoming ports are already blocked, but I'll take another look into advanced configuration option of the router, as far as those haven't been patched away by the ISP. I wish I could flash that thing with something accessible in another way than trough some stupid html interface (mmmmh, ssh => bash *droool*).

I experimented with samba a little... when activated as server, it really seems to try and steal clients / stubbornly out-complain running XP server ("Naaah, mine! Naaah, mine! Naaah, that really mine, I swear!!!"), which seemed to reduce some of the random looking "probing-around" of the XP machines (no idea what thei're doing - I imagine them searching for shares that haven't been there for several months now or something like: "Can has Netbios? Can has Netbios? Can has Netbios? Now? And nooow? And noooooow?" - maybe I should read some stuff about what NetBios is...).

Well... although I don't want to waste to much effort and mostly find "small tricks, that might help a bit", I'll keep trying stuff from time to time...

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-02 14:04:52

crappy network setup - only access to 1 machine & router

#2 2009-06-04 10:43:21

Re: crappy network setup - only access to 1 machine & router

#3 2009-06-05 00:21:33

Re: crappy network setup - only access to 1 machine & router

#4 2009-06-05 10:28:45

Re: crappy network setup - only access to 1 machine & router

Board footer