Wireless TCP/IP configuration, please assist!

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Timothy Miller - 27 Aug 2004 04:55 GMT

Hi,

I've got an airport base station ("snow") plugged into my desktop
macintosh and the DSL modem. All very conventional. Nothing else is
physically connected to the network. I use wireless to communicate with
my Macintosh laptop. It works fine in any combination of OS 9 or OS X.
I've got 128 bit WEP turned on.

(I have to restart in OS X to configure the Airport base station, but
once I configure it, it seems to work equally well with both operating
systems.)

So, now I want my new Windows XP laptop to communicate with the
Macintosh desktop and remote Macintosh laptop over the wireless network.
They say it's easy. All need to do is exchange documents using Timbuktu.
The Windows XP laptop is new, with factory installed 801.11g wireless
card. XP requires 128 bit WEP.

I've almost got all the configurations right. Specifically, I can ping
the router, the Macintosh desktop and the remote Macintosh laptop from
the Windows laptop.

However... The windows laptop won't respond to a ping from the desktop
Macintosh or the remote Macinoths. I'm not sure why.

I can't get onto the internet from the Windows laptop over the wireless
network, either. If I physically move the ethernet cable (connects to
airport base station) to the Windows laptop, I'm on the DSL and on the
internet, instantly.

This is a pretty specific problem, so I'm hoping there's an obvious answer.

I wonder if I need to do some port mapping with the Airport
configuration utility to get the Windows laptop to respond to the ping
and hook up with the DSL. That's just one theory. (I have opened up all
the firewalls. That doesn't help. However, the Airport does port
mapping, which is a kind of firewall, I guess.) I'm on NAT.

Any other theories?

At the moment I'm stumped and so is my smart, nice $65 per hour techie
geek. He's embarrassed. He admits he don't know much Macintosh.

When I send a ping to and from a Macintosh or a Windows XP machine, does
the ping enter and leave via certain ports? If so, which ones?

I hereby plead pathetically for suggestions and advice.

Cheers,

Tim Miller

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Darrell Greenwood - 27 Aug 2004 17:46 GMT

> I'm on NAT.

I wonder if there is a problem with DHCP, maybe check all your assigned
ip addresses

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To reply, substitute .net for .invalid in address, i.e., darrell.usenet2 (at)
telus.net

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Bob Harris - 27 Aug 2004 19:32 GMT

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 47 lines]
>
> Tim Miller

Did you enable the "Access Controls" on the Snow Airport base station?
That is a list of ethernet/Airport/WiFi addresses that are allowed to
use the Snow base station. This is not required security, but it can be
enabled, and when it is all the computers that want to use the Snow
Airport base station must be in the list.

Did you get the hex equivalent password from the Airport Admin Utility
(it is one of the menu entries)? It is necessary to enter the Snow
Airport base station password as a hex value on the Windows system.

Have you checked to see if your Windows system has been given a valid IP
address of the form 10.0.1.* with a mask of 255.255.255.0, and a router
of 10.0.1.1 (or something very similar to that with the first 3 numbers
matching what is shown in your Mac desktop and laptop TCP/IP control
panels).

And very very important, do you have DNS addresses on the Windows
system. many times people have everything else working, but with a
valid DNS server configured in the networking setup, they can not
translate www.apple.com into 17.112.152.32. The DHCP setup should pass
that information along from the ISP via the Airport base station, but
sometimes it doesn't happen. So check to see that your windows system
has the same DNS values as your Desktop and laptop Macs do.

After that it is time to experiment with turning off security
(temporally), using fixed IP addresses and masks, manually entering the
Airport base station IP address as the router addresses (typically
10.0.1.1), and manually entering the ISP's DNS addressees. One of the
above should work, and then it is a matter of figuring out why the right
things did not happen automagically. Posting an update to this thread
might give some additional ideas.

Good luck.

Bob Harris

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Timothy Miller - 29 Aug 2004 22:17 GMT

Thank you. You've been very generous. Your messages will probably enable
me to solve the problem.

TM

> Did you enable the "Access Controls" on the Snow Airport base station?
> That is a list of ethernet/Airport/WiFi addresses that are allowed to
> use the Snow base station. This is not required security, but it can be
> enabled, and when it is all the computers that want to use the Snow
> Airport base station must be in the list.

--snip--

> After that it is time to experiment with turning off security
> (temporally), using fixed IP addresses and masks, manually entering the
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Bob Harris

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valvoline - 30 Aug 2004 17:58 GMT

> I've almost got all the configurations right. Specifically, I can ping
> the router, the Macintosh desktop and the remote Macintosh laptop from
> the Windows laptop.

If you can ping successfully the remoste hosts, than the problem is not
on DHCP/AP misconfiguration. I haven't used any Airport Station, but if
you can see (ping) the remote hosts, than you've a working configuration.

ping is an ICMP-part protocol, than it makes no use of any particular
TCP/UDP port. No matter about NAT, also: ping is an application *NOT*
NAT-suffering. The only thing that you can check is the ICMP protocol
forwarding/enabling onto base-station (but i think that this's already OK).

> However... The windows laptop won't respond to a ping from the desktop
> Macintosh or the remote Macinoths. I'm not sure why.

Window XP (and later) gets an in-bundle firewall appliance integrated
in the kernel network level. Try to look if there's something about
Firewall enabled onto the Connection-Properties, i think the problem
is here.

> I can't get onto the internet from the Windows laptop over the wireless
> network, either. If I physically move the ethernet cable (connects to
> airport base station) to the Windows laptop, I'm on the DSL and on the
> internet, instantly.

Maybe the problem is the same: for some unknown reason, the Wireless
configuration has firewall enabled; LAN configuration not.

All considerations are born since you've wrote about a *WORKING* ping
FROM laptop TO either Workstation/Mac-Laptop. If this's not true than
the storyboard change a bit! In fact, the problem can be located onto
WEP misconfiguration and/or Airport Station Security-Hosts-Lock.

> When I send a ping to and from a Macintosh or a Windows XP machine, does
> the ping enter and leave via certain ports? If so, which ones?

ping go trought ICMP protocol, no tcp/udp standard ports.

If you've already tried this suggestions, than the problems can be located
onto MTU settings. Last month i gotta a special kind of problem during
an internet-sharing-trought-AP-installation:

The Laptops logged onto the AP (from D-Link manufacturer) can ping the
others clients onto the wireless-network but can't be pinged. Also,
no-internet connection neither win-samba connection was available. The
problem was located onto the default settings for MTU onto the laptop
clients. MTU stands for: *Maximum Transfer Unit* and it's a measure of
the maximum number of bytes that can be transported within a single
network packet (very roughly, but i hope that can give an idea). The
default setting is 1500 and this can be a problem onto Wifi communication
due to different standard manufactures.
Try to low this to 1492 or lower, i think that this can be a good
start point for your problem.

try and let` us know.

--
!(vlv)?spj:fnml:vrl;keyID=1D67B4DD;
"I have a very simple life, I have my family and I have Apple and Pixar.
And I don't do much else." (S. J.)

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Mac Forum / General / Networking / August 2004

Wireless TCP/IP configuration, please assist!