[AccessD] OT: Wireless network (sort of)

John Colby jcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri Oct 31 09:18:11 CST 2003


Browse master?  What about the DHCP Server, I thought that was its purpose.
My router hands out addresses.

John W. Colby
www.colbyconsulting.com

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Jim Dettman
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:53 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT: Wireless network (sort of)


Rocky,

  Some FYI stuff:

<<I heard that you can daisy chain hubs off one of the ports on your router
to
get more ports and that you can go up to 255 devices from one router this
way.  Seems to easy and cheap, though.>>

  Yes you can do that but you should not go more then 3 levels deep.  If you
do, the latency will become too high (time it takes for a packet to flow
through the network).  In a home network, that would never happen, but it
can in a business and is something you need to watch out for, because it can
happen easily.  Especially with employees who install WAP (wireless access
points) on their own.

<<I've also found that when creating a new network it sometimes takes a few
minutes for the different shared devices to 'see' each other - especially on
the wireless.  So I'll whang around frustrated trying to get the network to
work and then have the same experience you had - after a few minutes,
suddenly the other machines are in my network neighborhood.  Go figure.>>

 That's because of the way LAN manager and NETBIOS works (Win 9x and NT
networking).  When a PC boots up, it broadcasts it workgroup name and
computer name.  One PC on the network acts as a "browse master", which keeps
a list of what's on the network.  Other PC's then need to contact the browse
master to get the list for network neighborhood.  The browse master is
usually the first PC booted on the network.  If it can't see a browse master
already on the network, then it elects itself to becomes one.  Often, this
causes problem when (for whatever reason) it can now talk to another PC
which thinks it is a browse master.  They have to go through an arbitration
process to figure out who should get the job.  This involves a considerable
amount of overhead.

  Because of all of the above, the net result is that it can take 10 or 15
minutes for a workgroup or computer to show up in network neighborhood.  In
a large network, it can take even longer (sometimes 30 - 45 minutes).

  You can circumvent all this in a home network if you keep one station on
all the time by setting that PC to always be the browse master.  You do that
through network properties, File and Print sharing For Microsoft Networks,
and changing the Browse  Master setting from automatic to enabled or
disabled as appropriate (only one station should be enabled for the entire
network).

  Last, you can often clear up problems without rebooting by dropping to the
command prompt and doing: nbtstat -R , which forces a reload of the name
cache.  You can see what's in the current cache by doing nbtstat -c.  The
net view command also shows you the network in a non-graphical format
(Network neighborhood is built on top of that command).

HTH,
Jim Dettman
President,
Online Computer Services of WNY, Inc.
(315) 699-3443
jimdettman at earthlink.net

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin -
Beach Access Software
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 8:33 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Wireless network (sort of)


John:

I heard that you can daisy chain hubs off one of the ports on your router to
get more ports and that you can go up to 255 devices from one router this
way.  Seems to easy and cheap, though.

I've also found that when creating a new network it sometimes takes a few
minutes for the different shared devices to 'see' each other - especially on
the wireless.  So I'll whang around frustrated trying to get the network to
work and then have the same experience you had - after a few minutes,
suddenly the other machines are in my network neighborhood.  Go figure.

Rocky

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Colby" <jcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
To: "Database Advisors Inc. (Tech)" <Dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com>;
"AccessD" <AccessD at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 5:39 PM
Subject: [AccessD] OT: Wireless network (sort of)


> I ordered a Netgear MR814v2 Wireless router a couple of weeks ago.  I
needed
> to expand my 4 port router (I had 5 things I kept needing to plug in) and
> the Netgear was on sale at www.Newegg.com at the time.  I then tried and
> failed to install a linksys WPC11v2.5 I had laying around, so I ordered a
> dlink dwl-650 that was on sale (rebate) at www.newegg.com.  Long story
> short, it didn't work.  Long story a little longer, a very long call to
> dlink tech support, did not solve the problem.
>
> Or maaaaaybe it did.  After failing to figure anything out, they
recommended
> that I upgrade my laptop bios.  It's an ancient (now) 233mhz PII Toshiba
> Satellite 4000 that I bought with my first paycheck from my trip to work
for
> Mr. Breen in Dublin Ireland back in hmmm..... November 1997?  Getting a
bit
> long in the tooth, truth be told.
>
> The bios upgrade and also the old "turn off NAV before installing etc.
And
> "oh by the way, our card requires at least a 300 mhz processor.  So I
> uninstalled, upgraded to the latest bios (May 2000?), turned off NAV,
> reinstalled the drivers and re-installed the card.  Still no joy.  The
site
> survey showed no transmitters, and dlink tech support assured me that if
> there was a transmitter I would see it regardless.
>
> Ignorant liars!
>
> Went back in and reconfigured the card in the laptop for channel 11 (it
> defaulted to 3 and the router was on 11), played around with a couple of
> other things and boom, I see a transmitter.  Went in to the router config
> page and changed the SSID and sure enough the thing I'm seeing on the
laptop
> changes to match!  Still no connection though.
>
> Rebooted, played around some more and suddenly (no clear idea why) I have
a
> wireless connection, can browse my network and see the web.  Yeaaaaa.
>
> Moral of the story, tech support generally sucks, play around, don't quit,
> and eventually the gods will reward you.  Or not.
>
> Now, I need to know what to do to tighten this thing up so that others
can't
> see my network.  I'm a bit afraid to touch anything since I don't really
> know what I did to finally get it running.
>
> Can anyone walk me through tightening this up?
>
> John W. Colby
> www.colbyconsulting.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AccessD mailing list
> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
>

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