Strange behaviour between 2 wifi connected computers

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peebee
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Strange behaviour between 2 wifi connected computers

#1 Post by peebee »

Title edited: originally thought this was a Samba problem but further investigation has shown it is a more fundamental networking problem which may be hardware rather than software related....

=====================================
Original post:

For some time now I've been running Samba successfully on my desktop to share files with my laptop.

My current desktop setup is a frugal install of Slacko 5.4 with samba_full-3.6.1-s.sfs installed.

My desktop is upstairs and has been hard wired into my router with my laptop connecting by WPA wifi. The wifi router is a Thompson TG585 v8 supplied by my ISP (Plusnet in the UK).

I'd like to move the router to get a stronger signal downstairs so have bought a wifi adapter for the desktop which works just fine however when I install it I am no longer able to find any Samba shares from my laptop.

I am not running the Puppy firewall on the desktop, but there is a firewall in the router.

So I'm wondering if there are some settings I need to make in the router to allow the desktop to be a Samba server over wireless??

Any help gratefully received.
Thanks
peebee
Last edited by peebee on Wed 23 Jan 2013, 19:50, edited 1 time in total.
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p310don
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#2 Post by p310don »

It shouldn't make any difference what sort of LAN connection you have to share via Samba.

Are you certain you didn't enable the firewall on the wireless connection?

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peebee
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#3 Post by peebee »

p310don wrote:It shouldn't make any difference what sort of LAN connection you have to share via Samba.

Are you certain you didn't enable the firewall on the wireless connection?
Hi p310don

Other than plug in and enable the wifi dongle and unplug the ethernet cable I didn't make any other changes...

The router is as it was delivered to me - it is running it's "Standard" firewall.

I can't see anything in the router setup to suggest that the wired and wireless firewalls are in any way different....that's why I'm flummoxed :?

Thanks for your interest
Cheers
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rcrsn51
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#4 Post by rcrsn51 »

Which Samba client program are you using?

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01micko
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#5 Post by 01micko »

rcrsn51,

As for client software, while I can't speak for peebee I'm pretty sure he would have tried all the basic 3 available (Pnethood, YASSM, and the 'network' tool available in slacko-5.4).

peebee, all I can offer is that to make sure ports 137/138/139 are not blocked by the router .

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#6 Post by peebee »

01micko wrote:rcrsn51,

As for client software, while I can't speak for peebee I'm pretty sure he would have tried all the basic 3 available (Pnethood, YASSM, and the 'network' tool available in slacko-5.4).

peebee, all I can offer is that to make sure ports 137/138/139 are not blocked by the router .

HTH
Hi rcrsn51 & 01micko

Yes - Mick's right - I've tried all 3 - Pnethood, YASSM, and the 'network' tool - they all work with the wired connection but all fail to find a share once I've switched to wifi.

I actually tend to use lxpup on the laptop and use lxde file manager to access the share as it SO much more integrated and convenient than any of the 3 trad puppy tools....

Thanks Mick for the port info - now I need to work out where in the router that might be controlled....do I need to know which protocol to enable on those ports?

Cheers
peebee
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rcrsn51
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#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

Run YASSM Samba share login and use the server's IP address instead of its name.

Run PeasyPort and do a Names scan of your network. Does it detect the Samba server?

Does lxpup still detect the server?

If you run a client program on the server machine, can it detect the shares?

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peebee
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#8 Post by peebee »

rcrsn51 wrote:Run YASSM Samba share login and use the server's IP address instead of its name.

Run PeasyPort and do a Names scan of your network. Does it detect the Samba server?

Does lxpup still detect the server?

If you run a client program on the server machine, can it detect the shares?
1. nothing detected
2. nothing detected
3. no - lxpup also does not detect the server

Googling came up with a suggestion it might be an MTU length problem but I've tried setting to 1460 with
ifconfig wlan0 mtu 1460
but this seems to have no effect either....
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rcrsn51
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#9 Post by rcrsn51 »

If you run a Samba server on the laptop, can the desktop detect it?

If it does, that would tend to rule out the router.

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peebee
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#10 Post by peebee »

rcrsn51 wrote:If you run a Samba server on the laptop, can the desktop detect it?

If it does, that would tend to rule out the router.
I think it must be a router configuration problem as I can't ping the desktop when it is on wifi...

.134 is the wifi
.69 is the wired

Do I need to set it as a bridge do you think??

But why does it bridge wifi to wired but not wifi to wifi??
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rcrsn51
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#11 Post by rcrsn51 »

Have you tried rebooting the router?

2byte
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#12 Post by 2byte »

peebee

If this is the right manual http://www.technicolorbroadbandpartner. ... hp?id=7099

Did you access the router and add the desktop as a new wifi client?

Sorry if this is too obvious, but I often get bitten by the basics.


gcmartin

is this a boot-time bug in need of circumvention?

#13 Post by gcmartin »

Hi @Peebee

As I understand this problem, the issue is that a Linux PC which has a WiFi connection to the LAN cannot access a resource that is SHARED from a SMB server (Win96->Win8, OSx, Linux/Unix running SAMBA).

I have NOT remembered this as a problem, but I am not running same as you probably.

So, in an effort to track down this, I ask:
  • Do you have a Windows PC capable of Sharing and has Wifi?
If so, I may have test steps that might help you.

Here to help

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peebee
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#14 Post by peebee »

Hi One & All

Many thanks for your interest in my little problem - it is greatly appreciated.

I have now convinced myself that I don't have a Samba problem - but I do have a strange networking problem.

The problem can be shown by using the simple and low level ping test.

Basically after a reboot, if I ping the desktop from the laptop some indeterminate number of pings are "lost" before the sequence number shows that packets are being transmitted without loss. The lost packets can be anywhere between a small number up to many tens to hundreds.

Once the pings have started to work then they seem to carry on working for further tests.

pings when my desktop is ethernet wired to the router are always 100% successful.

I have tried lots of Puppy variants on the laptop and they all exhibit the same behaviour.

So I guess I have to suspect the new usb wifi dongle that I have bought - although it seems to work fine in all other respects like surfing the net. Unfortunately I don't have another to try in its place.

I will change the topic title away from Samba to networking.

Thanks again for all your help.
Cheers
peebee
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gcmartin

#15 Post by gcmartin »

OK @Peebee.

Here's another question to help you determine where your problem "really" is.

What happens when you ping an Internet location from that same PC? (you need not reply if you understand the intent of the question)

Here to help

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