Ah well, before I reformat and try debian on my laptop, i've decided to try and get the wireless network set up how I want, but can't seem to. Unfortunatly, my desktop card doesn't have linux drivers so it can't go in the server where it belongs. (My mistake, i thought it did have linux drivers when I bought it...)

At the moment, the desktop card is in an XP professional box, which nat's the connection from the DSL line. What I'd like to do is bridge them so that I can use my real IP's instead of going through the NATing process, but every time I tell windows to bridge them, it says an unexpected error has occured. If I give up on bridging, and instead try to get windows networking up on the NATed segment, it always tells me "your current settings will also disable the following components: client for mickeysoft..." Does anyone have any idea why it won't bridge the connection or why it won't let me have windows filesharing over the nated connection?

Matthew
PS: No, i'm not gonna fix the problem by using windows 2000... I might fix it by buying a real access point if i'm convinced it needs it.

It doesn't really address many aspects of your question (I am nothing if not an 802.11b newbie!), but one of the first things I would do is to go get something like this . Don't sacrifice your NAT but make your life easier and get it off your Windows box. ( I realize that this may not be an immediate possibility if you have an internal DSL "modem", but still think it would be the better approach to take if you are interested in internal networking flexibilty and expansion possibilities while preserving some basic security).

I don't have the clearest mental picture of your setup and no idea why the Windows box would be denying SMB filesharing unless it is configured somewhere to do so. I gather cable providers have begun blocking SMB/Netbios but didn't know that any specific DSL providers were -- and that wouldn't seem to apply anyway...doesn't shound like you're trying to share to somewhere outside your ISP's networks.

have you thought about fixing the problem by using Windows 2000?

/Me Duck!!

(edit: hmmm, if your considering a WAP, how about one of those combo router/NAT/WAPs?)

My guess is that Windows is simply unable to use bridging with the 802.11b card you have. Supposedly, there were a number of cards out there that tried to prevent you from changing their MAC address, and transparently passing the MAC address of the original client is probably the most common way to do bridging. Some open source OSes have overcome that, IIRC, but I doubt that Microsoft is going to try to intentionally bypass security features of a piece of hardware, even if it is for a useful purpose.

Of course, this is all conjecture. I didn't even know that Windows had a bridging function.

I didn't even know that Windows had a bridging function.

I wasn't so sure that this was bridging per se. Matt, without a WAP, I was thinking perhaps that these units were working in "ad-hoc" peering mode, as opposed to a stricter bridge config (such as a WAP-to-WAP bridge). Is that fair?

Yeah it looks like bridging is new for XP... I don't know why it won't work with my 802.11b card, but I guess I'll have to survive as things are until I decide to buy a real WAP. The real reason I'm thinking of buying an access point is so I can put it somewhere so that it will cover more of the house...

Any ideas why I can't turn windows filesharing on over the wireless link? I should be able to, right? I'm begining to think the drivers for this card are the main source of my problems...

Matthew

Any ideas why I can't turn windows filesharing on over the wireless link?

Windows file sharing uses ports that are usually blocked by firewalls and routers. To prevent hacking into your Windows shares, you see. Perhaps that's got something to do with it?

You said you were using XP... Do you have the "Personal Firewall" activated in XP?

Do you have the "Personal Firewall" activated in XP?

I'm XP-challenged, but if NAT is running on the XP box, would not the Personal Firewall component be running by definition? (and have some defaults that would block SMB, maybe?)

Nope the ports aren't blocked with a personal firewall... I can't even get XP to agree turn turn on filrsharing... Every time I do it give me an error message about how my present configuration requires that some components be deactivated or something.

Tonight I'm gonna try uninstalling/reinstalling windows networking, then trying this fix for bridging the connections.

Matthew