Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with internet and network

VPN from home NAS system.

CodeMonkey — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:36:19 -0800

I am trying to set up my router so that I can get at my files on my 3 NAS boxes. These NAS boxes are 1) D-Link DNS323, Infrant ReadyNAS NV+, and a Buffalo TeraStation HD-H2.0TGL/R5. The router is connected to the internet via a home service cable modem so it won't have a static IP and one step is to find the IP address before accessing. I have a router (DLink DGL-4100) which says it can make a IPSec VPN or FTP using a Virtual Server (I think). There would be no other PCs on the network since I would be taking my laptop with me when I access the network. The manuals for the routers talk about FTP serving but if I get a VPN set in my router then I should be able to just browse for whatever I want that way...right? The instructions say it can be done, but how? Please give me step by step instructions the best you can for setting up the router, the NAS boxes and my XP laptop (with suggested software, if necessary) since I have looked all over the internet and can't find anything I can understand. Of course the access should be encrypted and password protected. THANKS GUYS. From the router manual. (DGL-4100):
Application Level Gateway (ALG) Configurations
Here you can enable or disable ALG’s. Some protocols and applications require special handling of the IP payload to make them work with network address translation (NAT). Each ALG provides
special handling for a specific protocol or application. A number of ALGs for common applications ar enabled by default.

IPSec VPN:
Allows multiple VPN clients to connect to their corporate network using IPSec. Some VPN clients support traversal of IPSec through NAT. This ALG may interfere with the operation of such VPN clients. If you are having trouble connecting with your corporate network, try turning this ALG off. Please check with the system adminstrator of your corporate network whether your VPN client supports NAT traversal.

FTP:
Allows FTP clients and servers to transfer data across NAT. Refer to the Advanced -> Virtual Server page if you want to host an FTP server.

Virtual Server
The Virtual Server option gives Internet users access to services on your LAN. This feature is useful for hosting online services such as FTP, Web, or Game Servers. For each Virtual Server, you define
a public port on your router for redirection to an internal LAN IP Address and port.
Example: You are hosting a Web Server on a PC that has Private IP Address of 192.168.0.50 and your ISP is blocking Port 80.
1. Name the Virtual Server Rule (ex. Web Server)
2. Enter in the IP Address of the machine on your LAN – 192.168.0.50
3. Enter the Private Port as [80]
4. Enter the Public Port as [8888]
5. Select the Protocol - TCP
6. Ensure the schedule is set to Always
7. Check the Add Rule to add the settings to the Virtual Server List
8. Repeat these steps for each Virtual Server Rule you wish to add. After the list is complete, click Save Settings at the top of the page.
With this Virtual Server Rule all Internet traffic on Port 8888 will be redirected to your internal web server on port 80 at IP Address 192.168.0.50.

From the D-Link NAS DNS-323 manual:
FTP Server
The DNS-323 is equipped with a built in FTP Server, which is easy to confgure. It allows users access to important data whether they are on the local network or at a remote location. The FTP server can be confgured to allow user access to specifc directories, and will allow up to 10 users to access the DNS-323 at a time.

This section contains the configuration settings for the DNS-323 FTP Server.
The current settings and status of the DNS-323 FTP Server are displayed here.

The FTP access for users and groups can be added and edited here.

Category Determines whether the FTP server rule will apply to an individual user or a group.

User / Group Select the group or user the FTP server rule will apply to.

Folder Browse to and select the folder or directory you are granting FTP access to. Select root to grant access to all volumes.

Permission Set the user or group permission to Read Only or Read/Write.

FTP Server Settings
Max User: Sets the maximum amount of users that can connect to the FTP server.
Idle Time: Sets the amount of time a user can remain idle before being disconnected.
Port: Sets the FTP port. Default is 21.
Flow Control: Allows you to limit the amount of bandwidth available for each user.

Most standard FTP clients like Windows FTP, only support Western European codepage when transferring files.
Support has been added for non-standard FTP clients that are capable of supporting these character sets.

Access List: Lists all defned FTP Rules.

If you are behind a router, you will need to forward the FTP port from the router to the DNS-323. Additional flltering and frewall settings may need to be modifed on your router to allow FTP Access to the DNS-323 from the Internet. Once the port has been forwarded on the router, users from the internet will access the FTP server through the WAN IP address of the router.

From the ReadyNAS NV+ manual.

FTP/FTPS
To access the share via FTP in Share security mode, log in as “anonymous” and use your e-mail address for the password.
.
To access the share in User or Domain security mode, use the appropriate user login and password used to access the ReadyNAS. For better security, use an FTPS (FTP-SSL) client to connect to the
ReadyNAS FTP service. With FTPS, both the password and data are encrypted.

From the Terastation manual.
To allow Anonymous FTP, choose Enable for Anonymous FTP Server. Select a folder to share from the Anonymous User Public Shared Folder (only one folder may be shared by anonymous FTP) and
choose whether you want the share to be Writable or Read Only. Click the Apply button to set up anonymous FTP.
If FTP Server is disabled in the Basic window, this page will not be accessible.
Anonymous FTP mode uses port 8021 (e.g. ftp://IP Address:801).

Why-Fi?

Rhaomi — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:17:19 -0800

What's killing my wi-fi connection? The last few days I've been having some odd problems with my wireless network. I'll be browsing on my laptop when all of a sudden things get really slow, as if I lost the connection. But instead of being sent to "This page is not available" or "server not found" pages like when there really is no connection, I just get stuck loading forever. So if I open a tab and go to Google, it will sit and load saying "Waiting for www.google.com" in the status bar for a minute or two, then eventually say "Done" -- even though the only thing that has loaded is a completely blank tab (even the source code of the page is empty) with the raw URL in the title bar.

But throughout all this, there's no indication that I've lost my connection. The wifi icon in the system tray doesn't change, and says I'm connected if I hover over it. When I open up the Command Prompt and enter ipconfig /all, it says all my internet connection stats are normal. The subnet mask, DHCP server, DNS, etc. are all there. The IP address doesn't start with 169. It's all okay.

Weirdest of all, despite the fact that I can see that all the connection info is normal, if I enter my router's IP address into the address bar (which usually takes me to the router's settings page), it just does the same thing. Load... load... load... blank tab. I understand not being able to connect to the internet, but if I can see all my connection and router info in Command Prompt, why can't I connect to the same router with my browser?

The only way to fix it, I've found, is to disconnect from the wireless network and reconnect. It'll then work fine for anywhere from one minute to fifteen, at which point the connection drops again. This is only affecting my laptop, by the way -- iPods and other laptops connect fine.

I've tried restarting my computer, restarting the router, and repairing the connection -- nothing works. It seems that getting closer to the router improves things, but I'm not sure since the problem comes and goes randomly. And besides, the router is in the same place as it's always been, so unless it's suddenly lost broadcasting power I don't see what would cause the problem. And in the "View Wireless Networks" window, it says the network has an Excellent signal when I'm not connected (though that decreases a bar or two once I do).

The only incident I can think of is that a power surge recently burnt out the power supply, and I had to buy a universal one with an adapter to get the router up and running again. But this was a week or two before the trouble started, so that's probably not the source.

Is there anything that would cause a wireless router to lose signal strength like that? Is there something I can do to fix it, or should I just spring for a new one?

Details: I have a Dell laptop running Windows XP SP3. I have a Bellsouth Fast Access DSL internet connection. The router is a 2Wire HomePortal 1700HW. The loading problem happens on Firefox, Chrome, and IE7.

One more detail I remembered: For awhile when the problem first started, ipconfig /all was giving me some weird info. For instance, it said that the "lease" for the connection expired one second after it was obtained. But it's not doing that anymore.

Help me connect!

scarylarry — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:02:01 -0800

Help me connect to my girlfriend's wireless network! My lovely girlfriend has a closed wireless network set up at her house (it requires a WPA2 Personal password to access and it's hidden from Airport's network scan). I have the network name and the password, and I've joined through Airport. I get full bars, but no actual internet connectivity whatsoever.

Neither my girlfriend nor I are particularly computer-savvy. We're not sure if maybe she needs to give my computer special permission from hers, or what. I don't know if this matters, but we both use Macbook Pros--she's running Leopard and I'm running Tiger.

Thanks so much.

Internet Woes

Geppp — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:24:21 -0800

[ComputerFilter] Newly installed programs and updated programs can't connect to the internet. Any ideas? (Vista Home Premium) I've already tried adding exceptions to the Firewall, as well as disabling the firewall alltogether.

Firefox, along with a few other random programs work, but if I try to install a new program, or if I update a currently working program, it is no longer able to connect to the internet.

For example, I just tried installing Google Chrome, and it's not able to connect to the internet. Similarly with Spybot S&D and others.

Any input would be great. Thanks!

Latency? This. Is. Infiniteloop!

selfnoise — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:28:23 -0800

Help me try and fix my mother's weird internet/Mac Mini issue. So, my mother has a Mac Mini. This is one of the older PowerPC ones... no wireless. It's connected via a cat5 cable to a ZyXel wireless router, which is then connected to a DSL modem. The problem she has is a delay between requesting a webpage and having it start to load (in any web browser). Since I am a Windows user, I don't know much about Macs, so I am at a loss.

Pertinent factoids:

-When I go to dslreports.com and run a speed test, I get a latency of between 500-900ms, which seems really high.

-When I ping google.com from within OS X's network dialog, however, the latency looks normal.

-My netbook and another Windows PC can connect wirelessly without this issue. I also connected my netbook to the router using the same cat5 cable; no issue.

-I tried setting the DNS servers to opendns instead of the default; no change.

Apparently the system did not originally have this issue. Any ideas?

Sharing a 3G connection

hungrysquirrels — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:05:26 -0800

Home networking: sharing 3G connection on XP... I've gone through some articles and stuff but still can't get it to work. Could use some help.

My desktop connects to the internet using a USB stick, which uses 3G as my internet connection. I want to share this access with my netbook so my roommate and I can be online at the same time.

The host:
Desktop running XP
Wireless and CAT5 capability not currently being used
USB 3G stick

The client:
Netbook running XP
Wireless and CAT5 capability not currently being used

I have a CAT5 hub with some cables, and a wireless router at my disposal. Wireless would be preferred, ad-hoc I think might be ideal.

I had them connected through the hub earlier, could ping each other, but still couldn't get the netbook to access the web.

I've setup home networks, wired and wireless, a couple of times, but that was using a typical broadband modem. I don't know the intricacies when the modem is USB.

If there's any clarification questions, and I don't reply, it's because I screwed things up again.

So, network gurus, what would you do? I may just be approaching it from the wrong angle, if it is actually doable.

Cheap smartphone that will make Skype calls over Wi-Fi?

redteam — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:28:02 -0800

Can anyone recommend a cheap smartphone that can make Skype calls over Wi-Fi? I don't want to use the smartphone on the cell phone network (though I might if I can get a cheap one that will work with AT&T). I just want one that will be able to make and receive Skype calls over my home and office wifi networks. I would prefer that the phone actually run Skype's official software, and not some alternative. Basically, I want a cheaper alternative to one of those Belkin or Netgear wifi phones.

The Skype calls must be able to use the phone's built in microphone and speaker - like a normal phone call. I mention this because some of these phones will run Skype but only with a headset or only over the speakerphone or some nonsense.

I will try and find any recommended phones on Craigslist in Los Angeles, if that matters.

help find a way to make me redundant

dozo — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:12:28 -0800

My boss is looking for the most efficient and cost-effective way to add redundancy to our 20MB fiber. After 4 years of near perfect service, our provider had a large (8 hour) downtime recently. In order to avoid this in the future we've decided to stop putting off getting a redundant line that does not share the same point of entry as the fiber. We're looking for at least a t-1 that will kick in as soon as the fiber fails (just to keep data flowing), hopefully used far less than an hour a year. After looking, we've not been able to find metered service or what seems to be a reasonable rate in our area.

What experience has anyone else had with this kind of thing? Does anyone know of anyone out there (we're in Daytona Beach) that will charge us a reasonable fee ($500 a month is the cheapest we've found so far for a single t-1!) just to be hooked up to their network and not use their service, plus whatever we do end up using? Are we even going about this in the best manner?

I keep thinking that if we had had a metered line for $200 a month for the last 4 years, they'd have made ten thousand dollars off of us for maybe ten hours and 20 GB total bandwidth. Why WOULDN'T a company want to do this?

Network Knowledge

djgh — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:40:01 -0800

How can I analyse and understand what's going on with my PeerGuardian logs? How can I understand various network commands (e.g. ping, traceroute etc.)? I use PeerGuardian (OS X version), and even when I'm just surfing the internet it's adding to its logs telling me it's blocked various things.

e.g.

Sun Apr 12 2009 23:31:42.447 BST -Blck- 172.xx.xx.xx:xxx (netbios-ns) -> local:xxx (netbios-ns) udp4 'nmbd (xxx)' (Bogon:Ads, Spyware, Bogon, etc)

I'm assuming this means that it's blocked IP 172.xx... from accessing port xxx on my machine?

So taking things a step further, what can I do to work out 'who' this is? I've heard of ping and traceroute, and have a vague understanding of what they do - what else could I use just to gather info for purely academic purposes (i.e. - "ok, I understand what's going on, this black box makes sense to me now", rather than "I want to pwn joo with my l337 skillz!!11!)

Finally, I used to have (back when I was on Windows) what was essentially traceroute on a map (kinda like that scene in Goldeneye when they work out that Boris is in Cuba). Is there anything like that around for OS X? (it looked really cool, even if its utility was suspect)

Network access control on a timer?

doomtop — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:35:41 -0800

Network access control on a timer? I'm looking for the most effective/efficient way to control access to the network at certain times of the day/week. What I want to do is essentially people logging onto the network at most times just simply get Internet access, but at certain time periods of each day the users would become restricted and not be able to access the Internet any longer. Instead, I'd like to have them redirected to a page telling them why they can't reach the Internet and when they will be able to again. The time frames change on different days of the week as well, so it isn't the same times every day.

I was thinking a linux machine with a proxy server that gets turned on/off by cron or something along those lines. I am looking for suggestion on if that is the best way to do it, or if maybe there are some more simple or elegant solutions to this problem out there.

If it helps, the application is a school environment where certain times of the day Internet access needs to be restricted, i.e. study hall time, late at night, etc.

Cable internet + secure wireless network = outer ring of hell

johnofjack — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:49:37 -0800

I have a problems connecting to my wireless network, on one computer only. Other networks work for this computer. Other computers work on this network. Long & convoluted one here, so I'll try to be brief.

New internet: Cox Cable (switched over from DSL). Wireless network with a password required and WPA-Personal encryption. Linksys wireless router (WRT54GS v7). Linksys wireless card (WMP54GS). Windows 2000.

After much futzing about yesterday, I found that I had to clone the MAC address off my 10/100 card to the router so that the other computers in the apartment could access the internet. So I did, and they could, but now I can't--at least, not when connecting to the network wirelessly.

The message I usually get is "You are connected to the access point, but the internet cannot be found." Except I doubt that I am, because I usually can't go to the router's setup screen (except when I can). And I usually can't access my own computer by internal IP (except when I can).

BUT sometimes, after several tries, that very same password that I've been putting in will finally work and I'll be both on the network and allowed to use the internet. When this happens, the internet connection will be incredibly slow. I mean "timeouts on google.com and a half-dozen forced relaods before it finally loads" slow. But only for me--all the other computers on the network (macs, OS X) can authenticate with these same details and load things blazingly fast.

And sometimes I can't associate with my wireless network at all.

The complications / puzzling bits:
I can log on to my neighbor's open wireless and there is no problem whatsoever. Everything loads and it loads quickly. But I don't want to leech his bandwidth and I don't want to do anything like banking on an unsecured network.

I can run a 10/100 cable to the modem directly and everything works.

I can run a 10/100 cable to the router directly, disable the wireless card, and wait a bit, and everything works.

I've read all sorts of speculation about what the cause might be, and tried the solutions, but so far none of them work.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled my firewall.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled my wireless card.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the software managing the wireless connection.

I've power-cycled the router and modem, turned them back on and set all the details up again from scratch.

I've uninstalled my TCP/IP whatsit and reinstalled it.

I knew that several of those were almost certainly not the cause of the problem because I can log on to my neighbor's network and go anywhere online, quickly.

So, dear AskMe: why won't my wireless card talk to my router?

How much of the telephone and Internet systems would survive a nuke?

wastelands — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 07:40:53 -0800

Would the landline telephone system be completely down after a nuclear strike on ~20 U.S. cities? I'm an avid post-apocalypse buff, and I've been watching Jericho on Netflix's Watch Instantly lately. I love the show. But a few points of realism bug me, specifically, the lack of communication by radio / phone / Internet in the show.

Would the landline telephone network actually be down as portrayed in the show? I could be wrong, but wouldn't regional parts of it still survive? Or is the assumption that the bombs would have screwed up trunks/backbones and major switching centers? Or maybe general lack of electricity would kill it?

In the same vein, how much of Internet access would survive in the "Nukes hitting 20 major cities" scenario? It's supposed to be distributed, but again, maybe the idea is that big trunks were severed?

The sense of isolation and lack of communication and news in the show makes it more ominous and mysterious, but I somehow doubt it's realistic. I mean, if nothing else, there'd be Ham radio operators relaying news, right?

I want to access PS3 Online Store via Playstation 3 overseas

omaralarifi — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:02:13 -0800

How can I access playstation US store overseas via playstation 3 console? Is there a way I can access (by playstation 3) the US version of playstation online store?

I am outside the US.

Maybe by vpn or proxy or dedicated IP address or other hacks?

there must be a way!

And if there is a solution, how to set it up?

Help me stop stealing wireless from my neighbour

Beardman — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:49:51 -0800

Can you walk a poor knave through a router swap? (Surprisingly, Google is not that obliging...is that because it's as dumb as asking "Can you walk me through plugging in my TV?") Here's the situation.

I currently have a desktop PC (XP) hooked up to a non-wireless router that came from my ISP (Primus Canada). I recently bought a MacBook (OSX) and want to have wifi in the apartment. I already own a different, wireless, router. The wireless router was hooked up in a different apartment some time ago (c/o Bell Canada). What I would like is to replace the non-wireless router with the wireless one, using the Airport on my MacBook to connect to the net, but a cable to connect the PC to the net.

So is it just as easy as unplugging the non-wireless one, and plugging in the wireless one?

If I also have to change keys and codes and the like, what should I expect? What do I need to know?

Will I need to still have whatever keys/codes were associated with the wireless router when it was last hooked up? I'm not sure if I still have them written down.

Finally, the stupidest question: is my ISP charging me a price for just non-wireless internet, such that switching to a wireless router would be barred by my current plan? Or is that just not how it works?

Many thanks for bearing with me. (I feel kind of like a fuddy who thinks you have to be at your home computer to check your Hotmail account.)

Erratic network behavior

Gyan — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:39:51 -0800

My net connection has dropped like clockwork around midnight over the past few days. What's up? For the past 4 or 5 days, around midnight, give or take 10 minutes, I lose my net connection and don't get it back till morning. It doesn't happen during the day.

At first, I thought it was my router Netgear WGR614 v7 since it has been flaky before. But I bridged my LAN/WAN cables together (my ISP has a switch in the building and I get a CAT-5 direct from there) and the issue persists.

So, I try to ping the gateway but can't, and Wireshark shows other customers trying to get the gateway's MAC via ARP. BTW, I am assigned a static private IP i.e. behind a NAT, due to "scarce IPs".

So, today morning, with my connection on, I note down my gateway's MAC. An hour ago, my connection dropped momentarily. When I checked my gateway MAC, it was different than in the morning. When I flushed ARP and checked again soon after, it was different again and was a 3rd set of numbers, this time I could resolve names but not connect anywhere; this one also happened to be listed twice i.e. for another IP as well. I noted all numbers, and tried each as a static entry. The first one (morning) worked but was erratic (dropouts), the middle one seems to work normally (so far), and the final one doesn't.

What seems to be going on? Local or remote?

My OS is XP SP2. This is in India.

How to investigate an ISP

vilcxjo_BLANKA — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:50:37 -0800

How do I get information on the reliability and competence of an ISP? I have not changed ISP in a decade, but I think it's time. I currently have Speakeasy DSL. Speakeasy's customer service and reliablity is great. But it's DSL, so it's slow and expensive, and I'd like to switch.

My town restricts me to three vendors: Comcast, RCN and someone called Galaxy Internet Services. (This is Brookline, MA.) I'm pretty sure Comcast and RCN are incompetent, but I'm not sure about Galaxy. I have searched for reviews of them, but without very much success.

I don't need any software from them, or anything else except a digital dialtone. I need to run a mail server, a web server, an ldap server and my own DNS, though I could remove the DNS. I'm paying about $100/month for DSL and phone now, and would like that to decrease. I could do away with the phone service if doing away with it is cheap. I could pay a per-minute phone charge if that is cheaper.

Has anyone had experience with them? I'm particularly interested in fiber optic service, and not in wireless or in DSL service.

Thanks.

How to extend a wifi network at home.

barnone — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:10:57 -0800

Help extending a wireless network? I have a Time Capsule acting as my primary wifi base station. It's in the living room, attached to the only DSL line in the house. It has a great signal all over the house...except of course in my office, in the back room. Any good ideas how to extend the network back there? A few more details inside. The walls are thick plaster, so I think they're basically blocking the signal, because it's not physically that far from the Time Capsule to the room in question. I can get a full signal from some very minute areas of my desk, but if the MacBook gets moved even a millimeter, the network can't even be found! And it's not the exact same location each time, so I can't just mark X where the Macbook goes.

It's pretty much impossible to run an ethernet cord from the router to the office - it's across a big hallway and through several rooms. We rent, so no major drilling.

I do have an older Airport Extreme Base Station (802.11g - the dome shaped one). But I know that setting that up will effectively make the wireless bandwidth 1/2 of the slower speed, right?

Totally willing to buy something else (or make something) if it's about $50 or less. But I don't really want to plug something into my computer each time I sit down - those little antennas look annoying. Would even consider buying something more expensive if it's pretty guaranteed to work. Repeater? New Airport Express with 802.11n?

This has been driving me nuts for months -- would be so grateful for any help you can offer!

How to stop torrents at work?

numlok — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:13:20 -0800

I'm sure this question will not make me the most popular student at the dance, but is there a way to identify (via IP) machines running BitTorrent clients within an internal network (ie. work)? My company has around 50 employees, and the old, "Please don't torrent at work" doesn't seem to be doing much good anymore. It brings our email and web browsing to a near standstill, and dropping by the "usual suspects" is not only tiresome, but doesn't seem to find all the sources of traffic any longer. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Connected to Ask.Me ... Waiting for reply

Gyan — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:50:21 -0800

I can't connect to a couple of sites from any browser. One of them being Wikipedia. In FF3, I type "en.wikipedia.org" and press go. The status bar gets stuck on "Waiting for en.wiki.....". It never actually times out (at least, not within the first couple of minutes before my patience runs out). Similar outcome in IE6. This occasionally happens with Metafilter as well. The first time this happened was 6 months ago. It soon got back to normal and remained that way till mid-June. Oddly, when Wikipedia is OK, Metafilter doesn't load, and vice versa. But mostly it's Wikipedia which is down for the past 2-3 days. I can ping both sites successfully. My hosts file has no entries besides localhost. I'm using OpenDNS alongwith my ISP's.

I'm in Mumbai, India on Metro Ethernet and my (local) ISP techs know squat except their script. OS is XP SP2. No other site gives me problems, except for one, but that seems a server-side issue.

Free linux dynamic dns hosting?

Thoth — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:39:35 -0800

What is the best Linux friendly free dynamic DNS hosting provider? I'm in the process of setting up a server at home that I would like to access from work etc, so I'm after a good free dns service that features an automatic update client which runs reliably on Linux.

A google search of "dynamic dns" and many other permutations thereof throws up what seems to be about a million "free" dns providers, so I would be eager to find out if there is any consensus on what's good out there.

Thanks very much!

How to expand wireless network?

omaralarifi — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:19:25 -0800

I am using Belkin N1 Vision wireless router to get access to the internet. I need to expand my wireless network coverage but I am confuse what to buy? Another Router, Switch, or access point? I prefer less cabling of course. Can I connect a router to another router and solve the problem?

How can I create a social networking site?

lukeklein — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:39:51 -0800

How can I create a social networking site? I am in Southern California (Inland Empire/Orange County) and interested in building a social networking/message board/blog site along the lines of Sermo or Metafilter that isn't really about customizable media and meeting friends, as much as it is for people within a certain specialty, let's say the veterinary community, to share their ideas about their expertise with peers, receive newsletters relevant to their work, and ask for their peers' opinions or advice. I've come across several names like Elgg and Drupal, but I don't have the technical expertise to even recognize them as potential solutions to my problem!

Are their any open source programs and/or software firms that specialize in developing these types of platforms? Do I even need to go to a large firm, or is an individual software developer sufficient? How did the guy that created Facebook do what he did?

Just to be sufficiently clear, the features I am looking to enable on this site are:

Newsletters from the admin and notable writers of the industry
Anonymous polling of veterinarians' (members') opinions in current and relevant topics
blogs
Message boards
POSSIBLY a feature that allows individual vets to create friends lists of other vets they meet at conventions and locally, to facilitate their networking abilities.

If anyone here can direct me to someone that can work with me, I would be eternally grateful.

What lies between my browser and the internet?

miniape — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:11:24 -0800

I have an idea for a simple piece of software. It would involve intercepting browser requests, checking the requested url (probably not ip address, so before that conversion takes place) testing the url and redirecting if it passes the test. The test will itself make a network connection. Probably a pretty simple problem, but my background is in web development, and I'm foggy about 'OS' stuff, if that's even what it's called.

How are some ways I can go about this? I'd ideally like to write the program in Java or Python, but I'm not really looking for code specific information. I'm looking for google terms, useful libraries, descriptions of what happens step by step between the time I press enter on the keyboard and the time the request leaves the computer, generally strategies.

I'm guessing it might be hard because this is what a lot of spyware does, but I would be happy even if installation required some configuration.

DHCP and VLAN configuration help needed.

odinsdream — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:56:52 -0800

DHCP and switch VLAN configuration help needed. I have a DHCP server connected to one port of a managed Netgear switch. I'd like to configure VLANs on this switch for separate office areas, each with their own subnet. I know how to do this with static addresses, since I would just manually configure each computer with the appropriate subnet. How can I hand these addresses out automatically with DHCP?

I'm also not sure how to make one port of the switch (connected to the DHCP server/router) part of each VLAN. I understand how to place a port into an untagged or tagged state, and have it be a member of a VLAN with another set of ports.

Much appreciated!

I got them ol' DHCP blues

nylon — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:59:26 -0800

My PC has completely lost interest in automatically obtaining an IP address from any network, by any method. My Toshiba Satellite Pro has been my tireless servant for over 3 years. Last week, while plugged into my ADSL router via an ethernet cable, I went to get a cup of tea. When I got back, 5 minutes later, I had 'limited or no connectivity' on the network. Restarting the router had no effect, restarting the PC had no effect. I can assign an IP address manually, and connect to the internet with ease and joy via both ethernet cable and PCMCIA wireless card and USB wireless dongle thingy. The moment I entrust the computer with the oh-so-difficult task of attempting automatic IP acquisition, the taskbar icon hangs at 'acquiring network address' and then gives up some minutes later.

Some additional facts:
There's another computer on the same network, it has no problem getting an automatic IP address. DHCP is enabled on the router, there's a wide enough range of available addresses, and it's been working fine for many months prior to this.
I've tried the PC on 3 different networks, with the same result - automatic is hopeless, manual is ok.
My DHCP service is active on the PC, and is set to automatically start on start-up.
WinSockFix does nothing to help.
Enabling NetBIOS over TCP/IP does nothing to help.
Google tells me that seemingly lots of other people have had similar problems, but either only with wireless, or because they forgot to enable DHCP on their router, or some other fairly straightforward thing that doesn't seem to apply to me. And lots of advice online has been stuff like 'try restarting the computer', or 'make sure your router is switched on'.

This is driving me insane, and while I can access the internet at home, because I know the right DNS gateways to use for manual DHCP, it means I can't use the laptop away from home.

What have I missed? Can anyone help?!