Server - basic home - help...

[guydewdney]

I have set up a laptop (P111 500) with server 2000. I have chosen a laptop as its quiet, energy efficient and needs to be next to the printers. I have a couple of 1U servers, but they are very very noisy... (oodles of fans in them)

so -

Its running (i think) as a print server - I have two printers plugged into it (one USB, one parallel) - but thats not the question... that works.... (i think)

I cant seem to get the computers on the network to be stable and see each other - they are all on mshome network etc etc etc.

Can the server be set up to manage network names / permissions etc? At the moment the addresses (192 etc) are set by the router. Is this the best way? Would it be more reliable if the server did it?

I have no idea why they sometimes see each other - then thirty seconds later they cant. drives me mad - I have even at one point uploaded a file to the web, and downloaded it to another computer as I cant get them to talk to each other!!

Is there anything else I should be doing with the server - its HDD is far too small to be a file server - I have another old pooter stuffed full of hard drives that will be a file server - can I get the laptop to use the drives in there as its own - so I dont have to stick server on there as well?

Thanks

 

[fredfloggle]

What are the other operating systems ?
The old way was to use NT on the server , and set this as the browse master , which handled address allocation etc.
To be honest with you , I would set up an old pile of junk that you can leave on all the time as your file server , I assume you internet access is provided via the router and a gateway , rather than using the sharing function available .
would tend to allocate the router with say 192.168.0.1 as an IPA , and point everything else to it , the all you have to do is share your printers and drives attached to the "server" PC , no need to really run 2000 server , you don't need 10% of the facilities .

 

[Rose Chap]

Agreed. You can share printers on a network with XP Pro (possibly XP Home as well) which your PIII 500 laptop would be capable of running just about. Only criteria is that the device with the printer on it (say the laptop) will need to be up if other networked computers want to print.

Arguably a better solution is some kind of network printer (cheap JetDirect box off eBay?) or a NAS device which has the capacity to handle a USB printer.

I bought a NAS device recently for about £170 which gives me 320GB of network attached storage and can act as a print server.

Here's a link.

 

[fuzzer]

its all to do with file permissions. make sure your printers are shared to everyone.

If its an internal with no external network i might be tempted to share the c$ too.

 

[Sp!ke]

If its rather random, it'll be a master browser issue.

You want to disable the computer browser service on all clients. Then enable it in the registry on the print server also make sure 'Is browse Master=yes'.

If you dont do the above, XP clients will win the browser elections each time they connect.

This should make browsing to other PC's somewhat more reliable, however I rarely browse, preferring to use the UNC of the share.

 

[Shude]

This should make browsing to other PC's somewhat more reliable, however I rarely browse, preferring to use the UNC of the share.

\\blah? me too!

 

[guydewdney]

Sorry - I appear to have not been entirely clear.

I have used the laptop as I want to leave it on 99% of the time - and its quiet and small. The two printers I have are 1) a mahoosive xerox laser black and white, which I bought for 50 quid, and came with a box of toners and fixers etc etc. I use this for most of my printing. 2) a canon pixma IP4000 relativly high quality photo inkjet printer. This is for colour stuff etc etc.

I have no problem with the printing.... I have the printer 'shared' on the network - and it always works.

The other computers (this laptop, the GFs laptop, the 'shoebox' in the living room, the sooper dooper machine that the GF does her work on, and the to-be-file-server (not connected yet ) are all running XP pro.

They happily print.

They happily connect to the network, and surf the 'net.

They cant see each other.

They are all set with a shared C drive.

The net access is via the router:-

PC----wireless AP/Router/firewall---modem---the intersplodge.

Laptops ~ wireless to above

I have tried turning off all antivirus / firewall stuff. Nope - cant see each other. Yet, occasionally I can. And I could when I set the network up in the first place. the next day I could. Then I couldnt. Then PC1 sees PC2, but not PC3... yet no settings got changed.... Madness.

Thanks for the thoughts tho'

And Im glad I am not the only one who looked at sp!ke's post and just went uuuuurrr....

 

[Sp!ke]

As I say, You need a reliable master browser to maintain an acccurate browse list. This is best server by a machine that stays on permanently like the print server.

Settings *are* currently changed each time you switch on a pc in the workgroup... hence the randomness is caused by the order they all turned on and who was master browser at the time.

One question, when you cant 'see them' do you mean you cant get to the share or do you mean you cant ping them?

 

[guydewdney]

I can ping them (the address is actually 10.0.0.x)...

OK - how the hell do I set up the master browse liost? Or can you suggesta google set of words...?

Cheers mate

 

[HughJarse]

I use an SME server - easy to setup. Very stable and reliable.
And its running a service on a local authority WAN.

And..... its free.

 

[Sp!ke]

I can ping them (the address is actually 10.0.0.x)...

OK - how the hell do I set up the master browse liost? Or can you suggesta google set of words...?

Cheers mate

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/54/

 

[scotth_uk]

Guy,

When you say you can ping them, do you mean from a central machine, or do you mean that they can ping each other?

 

[WLeg]

Ping and browse are a bit different !! - as Spike says, there will be an election everytime you boot up a machine. As XP is the newest OS, it will win every time. Force the Browse Master to be the Server via registry changes oneach machine.

Have you tried turning off DHCP on the router, and using DHCP from the Server (this will also give you WINS, which should solve the above problem) - make sure both server and router have static addresses in the same subnet, but not in the DHCP range through !

Silly question time....

if you put in the UNC (\\192.168.1.xx\sharenname) path, can you see the machines and shares ?

Do they all need to share files, or do you just need one machine that all others can see and access ? - why not just plug in external USB disk into laptop server, to increase storage ?

 

[guydewdney]

weird...

OK - i went round all the pooters, fixing their IP address to 192.168.0.x subnet 255.255.255.0

Router 192.168.0.1
dlink accesspoint 50
modem 12
dell 66 (this one im on now)
shoebox 33 (cheap quiet livingroom thing)
gateway (laptop server) 44
3xs 22 (missus' expensive pooter)


I couldnt see (for example) 3xs computer - so I tried wills suggestion \\3xs\d - and lo and behold, I can see it... then when I go back to 'network places' - its there... arrrggghh.

but - try the same trick with 'shoebox' - and I can see it (\\shoebox\c drive) - but when i go to network places - its not there - like 3xs was...

edit - Yes - they are all on the same workgroup -" Mshome "

I went into whsmiths, and bought home networking for dummies

 

[WLeg]

Are they all in the same MS workgroup ?