Home Networking Anomaly

[ARSIMOUN]

Okay, here's the setup: 2 computers. WIN 98 SE on both machines. Cable modem. Linksys hub. Sygate. 2 NICs in server (one for cable modem, one for second machine access). One NIC in second machine.

The problem?

If I boot my machine while the second machine is running, I can see it on the network. If I start the second machine after I boot the server, I cannot see the second machine on the network, though through Sygate, the second machine is able to use my cable modem. I bought a hub, hoping that it might solve this issue (originally, I had a crossover cable), but it has not helped.

Anyone knw what is going on here? It's making me crazy!

TIA

ARSIMOUN

 

[fergiboy]

Are you using static ips?

 

[puritan]

Try booting your "server" without sygate loaded. If it still doesn't work, one simple, yet ugly, solution would be an lmhosts file.

 

[ARSIMOUN]

The IP address is set by my cable modem access provider.

 

[ARSIMOUN]

What makes you think Sygate is the issue, and what is IMHOST? Sorry to be dense, but this is the first network stuff I have ever attempted.

ARSIMOUN

 

[puritan]

Ok, In most software based firewalls, the system becomes active before the firewall software does. What could be happening is the 2 systems set up everything that they need to talk before the firewall software interrupts it. The LMHOSTS file is an IP to system name lookup file. it is essentially Microsoft's version of DNS (which is WINS) without having a WINS server. Your system has to know the other systems name that it is talking to. This is done via on computer on your network. It holds all of the system names and IP addresses in a table. The system that holds those tables is determined by all of the systems on the network participating in an election. It's pretty wordy, but not too exciting. The LMHOSTS file lets you set the system names statically. So if you have something preventing name resolution on your network (aka firewalls) you will resolve those names through the LMHOST file. Usually, once you resolve the name on the network, it is cached for a while. That was why I suspected the sygate software.

Hope this helps!