Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with network

DIY Network Architecture for 50+ person co-working space?

suedehead — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:45:54 -0800

I'm helping design/manage a 50+ person co-working space. It's a non-profit, so we're doing a lot of things DIY. How do we deal with (mostly wireless) networking? Or do we really have to hire an IT consultant? What's a good way to manage / plan out the necessary routers/switches/jacks? I'm untrained in networking, totally self-taught, but would be reasonably confident and proficient at setting up, say, a home office / small business network, but I'm concerned that I might be missing something at a 50~100 person scale. Again, our coworking space is a non-profit, so it's not like we have a lot of money to spend, either.

The space is split between two (smallish - 4000sqft) floors, and we're expecting 50~100 people, MAX, including guests, friends, etc. The space is a co-working space, so it's not like we will have an internal network with internal servers, VPN, etc. The top priority is to get everyone with high-speed internet access with decent QoS settings so that torrenting is throttled, Skype/video chat/VoIP is smooth, etc.

Since it's a co-working space, most of our users will most probably be using laptops. So we're planning on mostly having 802.11 wifi, with a few specific areas with ethernet jacks, so if users need to send gigabytes of data, they can walk over with their laptops and plug in there. Any cable runs will be less than 50'.

Our plan so far: Get a T3 or Metro Ethernet service (and appropriate router), have a dedicated hardware firewall, then have two 16-port switches for the first and second floors. The cables (cat6) will run from the switches to appropriate wall jacks in the wall, as well as two wireless access points (secured via wpa-psk) with the same SSID, on either end of each floor so that they only cover about 2500sqft. Here's a diagram.

Again, I'm self-taught, and have only set up a few smallish networks before, and our non-profit is pretty strapped for cash. Do I really need a patch panel, or can I just run cables from the switch to the wall jacks? Will a wireless AP be able to handle 25+ clients? Am I overlooking something crucial?

I know that advice is worth how much you pay for it. Any ideas / tips / concerns would be much appreciated. Thank you so much, AskMe!

Router noob in need of help

GlassHeart — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:32:57 -0800

Help me make my wireless router work with my XP PC A few weeks ago I bought a laptop and, a couple days ago, bought a wireless router—a D-Link Wireless N300 Router—to allow me to be connected simultaneously to the net on both my desktop PC (which has Windows XP installed on it) and laptop.

Yesterday I connected the router to my XP machine, my primary machine, as the instructions supplied with the router said to: I put the yellow ethernet wire from my desktop PC into the LAN 1 port on the router and put the blue wire, which was supplied with the router, from the INTERNET port on my router into one of two ports in my DSL modem—the port that used to have a yellow ethernet cable in it that went into my desktop PC (the other port, labeled DSL, has a phone cord that leads to the port on the wall. That, of course, is necessary for a net connection; so I left it as it was).

The laptop came with Windows 8. After checking it—Windows 8—out for ten minutes, I knew it wasn't for me and downgraded to Windows 7. After installing Windows 7, I installed the various drivers for the laptop and, upon finishing that, noticed that Windows detected a signal coming from the router. After some tinkering, I was able to connect to the internet on the laptop. As for the Windows XP machine: It didn't seem to detect anything. I then tried setting up a net connection using various methods—without success.

I'm wondering if perhaps I need a wireless card (or whatever it's called)—which I'm quite certain I don't have installed in my XP machine—installed in my XP machine. I somehow doubt it, as the yellow ethernet cable is directly connected from the router to the desktop machine, which should allow net access. If not that, perhaps upon installing Windows XP on my desktop machine, which was sometime last year, I disabled one or more services in Administrative Tools that must be enabled in order to use a router (I tend to disable various services in Windows to gain an admittedly meager performance boost). Which services, that I may have disabled, should be enabled to make a router work?

Here's the network card and "wireless connectivity" my laptop has:

Network Card: 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)

Wireless Connectivity: 1x1 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN

This is the Network card my desktop PC has (can't find anything to do with "wireless connectivity" anywhere):

10-Base-T

(Interface: Integrated into motherboard
Technology: Realtek RTL8201E
Data transfer speeds: up to 10/100Mb/s
Transmission standards:10-Base-T Ethernet)

I was going to post all of the specs for the computers, but that would've been overkill. The amount of ram, HDD space, etc. I have won't help anyone solve my issue.

One last thing: As I said in the question title, I'm a noob when it comes to routers. Though I don't do anything I shouldn't do online, I worry that the router will allow guests who use my desktop or laptop easily view my internet browsing history. I certainly don't want guests who use them to be able to easily view what sites I've been browsing and I'm not at all interested in seeing what anyone else has been browsing. I allow guests to browse whichever sites they please as long as the sites won't get me into shit with the law or give me viruses.

How to extend WiFi to another building?

TheNewWazoo — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 10:24:52 -0800

I'm looking for a way to extend home WiFi into an adjoining building, where laying cable is not an option and packaging/LOS is a concern. I'd also like to reduce equipment cost, while not compromising endpoint throughput. Specific details inside. I've currently got a Cisco Linksys E3000 running DD-WRT, and I'd like to share my 802.11n WiFi link with my neighbors (on the same lot). My link is fast and we've got a lot of extra capacity, so it makes sense. The E3000 doesn't have external antennae and I can't mount it up high, so getting LOS to the other building is hard. We're separated by a privacy fence, too, so the path is blocked by wood. The buildings are about 60' apart, but their house extends another 50' or so, and I'd like good signal to cover their entire house.

Is there a good solution here? Ideally I could hand them a box and say "here, this replaces your cable modem/wifi box", and it would Just Work, with good speeds and coverage while still providing them with options for locating the equipment and also allowing a twisted-pair PHY if they need it. I have some admin chops, so technically involved solutions are okay, but I'd like not to spend much money on specialized equipment. What are my options?

How to Prepare for Grad School, out of state, and Hit the Ground Running

TRUELOTUS — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:00:12 -0800

I will be moving to Boston for Grad school. I would love a checklist of what I need to do to prepare, A. I guess just the move in general, but most importantly B. Making the most of the MPH program and hitting the ground running- 2 years is gonna go by fast. I have to secure housing. I need to make sure that I have enough professional clothes- so I am gonna raid the Loft clearance rack. Other than that, I am looking to find a free online Biostats and Epi course, and looking into/reading up on How to Network- everyone keeps talking about it, and I am a total introvert- so I know I gotta figure that out so I can get a job when I graduate. If such a doc already exist, or something like making the most of grad school (I already have the book Getting What you Came for) please let me know, or otherwise give me your advice on what you think I should do now to prepare and be successful, what you wish you had know or done. thanks!

I don't understand the question, and I won't respond to it.

burnfirewalls — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:17:21 -0800

What are the Netflix engineers currently doing to make sure that this weekend's release of Arrested Development Season 4 will go off without a hitch? When Simcity 5 launched in March 2013, the network connection required to play caused scores of problems, not the least of which were server outages. This is a recent example of many high-profile game launches that received mass negative backlash based around server availability and performance.

With the hype and excitement and sheer data required for Netflix to stream the 4th season of Arrested Development into the devices of thousands of fans this weekend, what preparation are they likely doing to make it a success and avoid the pitfalls of so many game launches?

Need advice for a corporate LAN/port/network security issue.

JPowers — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:52:57 -0800

I have a corporate LAN/port/network security issue that I'm looking for some advice on. Let's say you have an application server (AppServer) which has a good bit of sensitive data living directly on its harddrive.

Let's also say AppServer lives within a LAN (i.e., it is not in a DMZ).

Now let's imagine that a bunch of remote users (i.e., users who are not living within the same LAN) need to connect, using a thick application client, to AppServer.

Finally, let's say that, because of the cost of setting up a VPN server, a decision is made to just universally open up port 443 through the LAN, so that all of these remote users can talk directly to AppServer (via SSL) from their thick application client.

In this situation, what are the security risks of opening up port 443 like this? Also, is this reasonably advisable?

Software to monitor network activity AND which program is active?

gnossos — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:59:17 -0800

I am looking for some software (cheap, free) that will tell me which program is currently accessing the net AND how much traffic is being transferred. I have found lots of software that will tell me which port is in use, or which port is assigned to a certain program on my computer, but I can find no software that will tell me which program on my computer is currently transferring files to and from the net and the current transfer rates.

I am using Win7 on both 32 bit and 64 bit machines.

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

Gnossos

How can I stream live television to 50-100 computers?

Bathtub Bobsled — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:59:30 -0800

What is an inexpensive hardware and software configuration that would allow someone to stream a handful of channels of live TV to 50-100 computers, accessing these on demand? I've been contracted by an educational institution to do an upgrade to some of their network systems. Primary project is running GigE throughout several buildings. In a conversation with the customer, he was remarking that their cable provider wants to charge them $40k/month to set up cable feeds in all of the rooms (or maybe it was $40k to install... I may have misheard). This is utterly ridiculous, since he only wants 4-5 channels available, and it will be rarely used more than 50-100 times on a given week. The only exception is presidential inaugurations, shuttle launches, or other nationally televised events they will all watch at the same time (2 times a year at the most).

As I was driving home, I thought about my home setup using TVHeadend and RasBMC/XBMC. I have a PCIE TV tuner, and it can stream my HD cable to different rooms, and we can even DVR to an external USB 3.0 SSD without issue. My wife and I can be watching multiple channels, and I can PiP on my laptop. It works very smooth and it's not a remarkably robust or expensive system. I mean, one of the clients is a Rasberry Pi.

So, I thought, how hard would it be to setup a dual-Xeon with 4 tuner cards, and use a some sort of broadcasting stream (only broadcasting those 4-5 channels, and the 1 channel during big events) that allows them to open up a client like XBMC or the already installed WMC and watch the broadcast of whatever channel they want. For the scale he's looking for, I figure VLC, MythTV, or TVHeadend, and a well configured tower should be able to do the trick for less than $4000, right? Or am I overlooking something?

Also, there is no need for the ability to pause, rewind, or record anything. Just to pull up the channel and watch, the same as you would on a regular television.

Shortened URLs no longer work on my devices

undue influence — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:56:48 -0800

Shortened URLs don't work for me anymore. Say, on my phone, when I'm reading my Twitter feed and I click on a shortened URL, it doesn't redirect, just eventually returns a 'time out' error. I've copied and pasted the short URL into both Chrome and Safari, but with no luck. Can you help? An iOS 6 iPad and an Ubuntu 12.04 laptop fail too.

need help investigating slow Linux home LAN

xbonesgt — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:25:39 -0800

Why are file transfers between PCs on my home network so slow when I can download stuff from the internet way faster? I'm a developer, not an IT guy; I don't even know where to start looking to figure this stuff out. Details below - My home network consists of one Ubuntu 12.10 laptop and one Ubuntu 12.04 HTPC/file server/etc. The laptop connects to my LAN over 802.11n, and the PC over GigE. The router is an Asus RT-N66U. I have no problems accessing the internet from either machine; download speeds are fine on both according to speedtest.net . The problem is that it is agonizingly slow to access the PC from the laptop.

I've got the PC set up to export a directory over CIFS, so I can mount it on the laptop and get to my music and photos. Reading from or writing to this directory takes ages. It takes ten seconds to list the contents of a directory from a command line, and it takes 5-6 seconds to open a ~4MB image in GIMP. I suspect I've got smbd configured incorrectly, but then again I had the same problems when I had everything set up using NFS, but then again I might have set that up incorrectly too. This isn't a new problem for me, so I don't think it's the result of any recent software updates.

Any ideas on where to start digging? thanks!

Use of The City as a metaphor for the Internet/Web

0bvious — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:19:31 -0800

I am looking for examinations of the Internet and World Wide Web that use the structure and/or history of the city as a metaphor. I'm afraid I have no original example of this phenomenon to kick things off. I have this image in my head of 'the city' that always goes back to Plato and his Republic. Plato's city was a physical, social construction, as well as a philosophical metaphor, at one and the same time. It feels that many have talked about the Internet in similar, overlapping, terms.

(It need not be 'the city as metaphor', rather any social, physical space that humans build and live in will suffice. Also, metonymy rather than metaphor would be great.)

Writings that explore the political history of the city, it's technological expansion, that consider the city as a nexus for theories of human civilisation, of emergence perhaps, of structure, social and political control and, perhaps most importantly, of space vs place - all as a way to think about similar phenomena taking place online. The Internet as emerging network with similarities to the city; the World Wide Web considered as spatio-social metaphor?

etc. etc.

Any ideas?

Wifi not connecting on laptop, but works on phone?

cozenedindigo — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:27:11 -0800

My laptop refuses to connect to my home wifi network, saying a cable is unplugged. It's not. My laptop has been working fine up until today. I started up and tried to connect. I got a message saying "a network cable is disconnected. I tried disabling the wired connection, thinking it was confused. I tried resetting the router and the modem, and shutting down/removing the battery from my laptop. I checked all the cables and made sure they were connected. I checked my wireless adapter in Device Manager, it says it's functioning properly and drivers are up to date. Nothing's worked.

The odd thing is that my iPhone can connect perfectly fine to the network. So I'm at a loss. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

How do I test the speed/reliability of a network?

Betelgeuse — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:39:41 -0800

I have a somewhat complicated home network (see inside) that works OK most of the time but is occasionally unreliable. What software tools exist for testing the long-term reliability of a network (i.e. over several days)? After asking this previous question, I set up my home network in the following way:

Cable Modem -> Main Router -> Powerline Adapter -> Secondary Router working as an Access Point

This gives me network access in the basement and another corner of the house (where the wireless from the main router wouldn't reach). This works OK much of the time, but I have annoying intermittent problems where I'll try to load a web page and it will just hang for, at times, close to a minute. Then everything will load and is fast again.

I can't tell if this problem is limited to wireless (it seems like it is, but 80-90% of our access is wireless) or if it's a problem with the PowerLine adapter (my current suspicion). I have moved the main router to the other side of the Powerline adapter and it seems better (suggesting it's NOT the Powerline), but problems often take a few days to crop up after I've reset my network hardware, so that's extra-annoying.

So, what I'd really like is tools with which I can test network connectivity or suggestions on how to troubleshoot. Since the problem is intermittent, any tools would need to be able to test the network over, at least, a 24 hour period. My technical skills are moderate and software that runs on a Mac is preferred (although I could dig out the Windows/Linux box if I really need to).

Ideas on what my problem might be are also welcome.

Fastest VNC setup? Concurrent RDP sessions in Windows 8 Pro?

jsturgill — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:19:28 -0800

I just purchased an underpowered computer to experiment further with remote desktops. Ideally I'd like to be able to use a remote desktop technology to stream HD video from the remote server, play a game on the client that's rendered on the more powerful server, and to have a local user work on the remote serving computer while another account on the server is being accessed remotely by the thin client. It's OK if the ideal just can't happen, but I want to try out each thing and see how close I can get.

Does VNC allow concurrent sessions?

Any hacks that won't rootkit my computer to allow concurrent sessions over RDP in Windows 8?

Any specific software or approaches to try out that would allow the client to play high-end video games rendered on the server?

Any tips on getting HD YouTube videos or files to play at high quality on the remote client?

These are all Windows 8 machines, with Linux as a possibility on the client end if it provides some advantage, connected with each other on a fast home LAN.

Backup to CrossLoop for international remote access to my computer

DaftMythic — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 17:40:46 -0800

I have a personal desktop that I want to access from my laptop while I am traveling abroad for the next 4 months (international, not the fastest connections). CrossLoop seems to work but what else should I use that is more robust? I am thinking I need a more lightweight way to remote in, perhaps via command prompt or something, that is more robust in the event CrossLoop is too slow or breaks.

I am a lazy, kind of techy person. I don't mind learning more gritty detail about how to remote in using EMACS (sarcasm, don't even know if that is possible) or something, but I know nothing about network admin, VPN or any of that stuff. So I need something I setup and use rather easily.

The things I would like to be able to do:
-Search for files and transfer them back and forth between my laptop and desktop
-start and stop tasks and monitor the task manager
-be able to go to websites as if I was in the USA*
-Generally feel the comfort of knowing I can access my desktop (I've already setup a dropbox with all my critical files, but still)

*I know that is ip masking, and I am looking into tools that will allow me to do that but any advice on that count would be appreciated also.

How does on properly "network" when looking for a new job?

windbox — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 08:16:19 -0800

When job searching, how do you successfully network without looking tacky, blowing your cover at your current job, looking desperate - just general rules for avoiding acting in poor taste, whatever that would look like? I am currently employed in an industry that is very "networky" already, though I usually do not attend networking events because it is mostly just so buyers and vendors can all get together and find new business/new partners. I also never have anyone to go with me and get paranoid standing around by myself.

I am aggressively looking for a new job these days though, so I'm trying to think as outside the box as I can here. I've already contacted old coworkers to see if they know of anything and it's led to an interview, but the job wasn't a good fit. I also responded to a recruiter who reached out to me on LinkedIn which led to two interviews, but it didn't go anywhere afterward. In conclusion though - unsurprisingly - actually talking to people has gotten me interviews more than applying to places online and on linkedin which sort of just feels like sending my resume and cover letter into a black hole, no matter how carefully I tailor them. So - I am trying to talk to more people.

My question is, is there a way to go to these networking events and make it clear that I'm looking to change jobs? Is that desperate, tacky and off-putting? Is it wrong to go on behalf of my company without letting them know I am attending? Am I leading someone on (for instance, a vendor) if we connect at a networking event and they see that I was only interested in job opportunities, not doing business? Sorry, I've been working professionally for about 3 years now and still don't understand all the social norms around this so I'm paranoid about breaking them - would hate to tell people "well actually I'm here because I'm looking to see who might be hiring, I'm looking to change jobs - do you know of any openings?" and just looking really off-putting.

Any advice on this? Also, if anyone knows of more creative ways to job search while still employed, I'd love to know.

In search of a lasting wireless network solution

Rhaomi — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 07:12:09 -0800

After wasting two different off-days trying to get my damnable modem+router working, I want to return them both and get something entirely new. Any good recommendations for a solid, reliable DSL modem and wireless router set-up with decent NAS support? THE STORY SO FAR:

- had an ISP-supplied hybrid modem/router for a few years that worked fine
- bought a new laptop last year and swapped the hard drive for an SSD
- decided to use the spare hard drive as an external drive for storing large media files and performing automatic backups
- bought an Apricorn USB hard drive enclosure designed to support NAS stuff
- bought a Western Digital My Net N600 router with a USB port designed to support NAS stuff (the old modem had no USB ports)
- ran into endless bizarre problems trying to get the N600 maintaining a connection to the old modem in bridge mode
- discovered plugging in and using the external drive was crashing the router firmware
- exchanged N600 for a better-spec'd N750
- more bizarre problems; dropped connections; router web interface sluggish
- tried installing a firmware upgrade from the official website
- now the router won't even boot up, *not even after a paperclip factory reset*

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

There are just too many potential glitches and conflicts here for me to deal with any more -- the fact that the modem is old (and in bridge mode), the general bugginess of Western Digital's routers, the fact that I'm using a laptop hard drive instead of one purpose-built for NAS work.

So I want to start from scratch. New DSL modem. New router. Maybe even a new hard drive and/or hard drive enclosure if that might help.

What I need to know:

- What's the best option for a reliable dedicated DSL modem? No-frills is fine as long as it's reasonably fast and can support a PPPoE connection type.

- What's the best option for a reliable wireless router with support for an external USB hard drive? I'm willing to spend more if it can buy me quality, dependability, and a no-hassle set-up with a decent web interface. I'm seriously tired of troubleshooting unaccountable wifi problems via unhelpful router settings pages that crash often and don't tell me anything useful.

- What's the best option for a reliable external hard drive set-up? I'm not doing enterprise-level stuff here -- I just want it to store my iTunes, my movies, and have some space left over to automatically back up a ~256GB SSD. I already have a laptop hard drive in the Apricorn enclosure I mentioned, and it did allow me to (temporarily) access my files wirelessly. But I'm not sure if the crashes I mentioned were due to the Western Digital router being shoddy or the hard drive/enclosure set-up being inappropriate for that purpose. Should I maybe reformat the hard drive for use as a NAS? Or would it be better to just get a purpose-built USB NAS drive?

I'd also be interested in a decent combination DSL modem/router with NAS support if that would be easier to set up. My current, years-old modem/router hybrid works flawlessly, but just doesn't have any USB ports to plug a drive into (only a USB B port, which apparently can't support that kind of thing).

Any recommendations -- especially based on personal experience with the device -- very much appreciated!

Which home NAS with online backup for 2013?

scruss — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 08:58:19 -0800

I have a mess of ad-hoc backup systems, none of which “just work”. I would like to have a NAS that quietly backs up the cross-platform content I have, and also mirrors it online securely. I should probably budget for about 1-2 TB. I have no problem doing geeky setup stuff, but the less routine stuff I have to remember, the better. System details follow. These are the computers we have:

My MacBook, with about 300 GB on it. Backed up locally to a USB Time Machine (desperately, annoyingly slow) and mirrored to SpiderOak.

ms scruss's iMac (200 GB). Only locally backed up to a FireWire Time Machine.

An mp3 collection of about 300 GB, currently living on 6 year old USB drive connected to a SheevaPlug.

An old Linux box with pretty much my entire (online) life from 1991–2010 on it (300 GB).

Many little Linux boxes, from Raspberry Pis up to a ThinkPad, running various video/audio/multimedia/radio control applications around the house. Probably no more than 50 GB on all of them.

A D-Link DNS323 two-bay NAS running 5+ year old 1 TB WD drives. These drives are likely about to conk out any time now. Mirrors the music backup, and haphazard bits of everything else (when I remember). Likely has about 100 GB of stuff that's nowhere else

There's likely a ton of duplicate files on all of these. I'm unlikely to be bothered to go through and clean them up manually.

I have 25/10 DSL, and no bandwidth cap. I'm not wild about staying with SpiderOak; while its de-duping and security is rather good, its pricing and cross-platform/architecture support isn't. I would like to have occasional online access to files should I need them when I'm away.

The NAS would be on our wired network, and powered through a UPS. Swappable drives would be good; are home/office NASs there yet for seamless redundant drives? I'm not looking to run a desktop machine as a NAS, as they're too loud and draw too much power.

Changed ISP unable to send email with e-mail account of old ISP

conrad101 — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:35:04 -0800

I have a friend who has become totally reliant on an e-mail account, which was provided by an internet service provider which she has just left to go to a new ISP. She uses Outlook 2003 as her e-mail client program. Unfortunately, she is now finding that after moving to this new ISP that although she can receive e-mails absolutely fine, she cannot send e-mails. Her old ISP was talktalk.net and she has become dependent on the e-mail account provided by this ISP. However, after connecting her computer to her new ISP's intenet connection, which is BT internet; it has become apparent that her e-mail client: Outlook 2003, can receive but not send e-mails. The error message on attempting to send e-mails as shown by Outlook 2003 is:

"Send test email message: Outlook could not logon to the outgoing mail server (SMTP). The problem could be the server name, your server may require authentication, or your server may not support SSL. Verify authentication and SSL options under more settings."

I have tried changing the SMTP address in outlook 2003 with tools > email accounts > view or change e-mail accounts> change> from: smtp.talktalk.net to btinternet.com, without any change in outcome. Any suggestions as to what I should do next? Many thanks!

Internet, you're being weird. Stop it.

Rhaomi — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:01:41 -0800

Trying to set up a new wireless network and running into all kinds of strange problems. Connections dropped every few hours! Some machines work, some don't! Can connect to internet, can't connect to router! DOGS AND CATS LIVING TOGETHER (literally). Please help. The set-up is a little convoluted, but does work (until it doesn't).

The original router is an ISP-provided 2wire HomePortal 1700HW, a combination DSL modem/router that plugs directly into a phone jack and broadcasts it as a WiFi network. It's a few years old but has worked decently on its own up to this point, so I don't think the problem lies there.

The newcomer is a brand-new Western Digital My Net N600 router, acquired both to improve on the range of the old one and to provide networked storage capability for shared music and such.

Configuring the two of them to work properly was a bit of a dog, but I finally did get it working. The phone jack plugs into the old 2wire, now set to bridge mode to disable its built-in wireless capability. The 2wire plugs into the N600 via Ethernet. And the N600, armed with all the correct PPPoE login information from the ISP, correctly connects to and interprets the DSL coming in from the 2wire and broadcasts it out. Even the network storage works!

Problem is, every couple of hours this connection fails, and in the weirdest way possible.

Right now, I'm typing this on an old 'n' busted laptop running Windows XP. It's currently connected to the N600's wireless network and can browse the web no problem. All the status lights on the routers are green, running an ipconfig command returns normal IP address information (including the router's IP), I can ping the router at that location fine.

But I can't connect to the router's settings page (192.168.1.1). WTF?

Also, a visiting Chromebook can connect to the network but can't load any websites... except for AOL webmail, of all things. A test email sent from a phone showed up in the inbox fine, while Google, Facebook, etc. look dead. Not even Gmail, mail.live.com, or even just plain old aol.com work -- just mail.aol.com. This Chromebook doesn't have a data connection, btw, just WiFi. I say again: WTF?

Meanwhile, a newer Windows 7 laptop can't connect to the N600 network at all ("Unable to connect..."), and even plugging directly into the N600 router via Ethernet won't work -- I can ping it fine, but neither websites nor the router settings page itself will load.

Various mobile devices are likewise denied -- various iPhones and iPads can't connect to the network at all.

Power-cycling the N600 router solves all these problems and things work alright for all devices... for a few hours. Until everything craps out again, for no apparent reason.

What could be triggering this issue, and how do I fix it? I've dealt with wonky router stuff before, but it seems totally bizarre to me that:

- the status lights on both routers are fine, including the N600's "internet connection OK" light
- ONE laptop can connect to the router's WiFi and browse the web, and can ping the router, but can't access the router itself
- the other laptop can ping the router through a wired connection, but can't access the router settings or browse the web that way
- a Chromebook can connect to the network and can load *one* website (mail.aol.com), but nothing else
- no other device (apart from that first laptop that mysteriously works fine) can connect to the WiFi network at all

Any thoughts or advice appreciated; I'd love to get this problem fixed rather than have to venture back to Best Buy and try to find a replacement (maybe an N900? who knows).

How do I play the networking game?

gadha — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:45:39 -0800

I lack the networking skills needed to progress further in my job. I'm trying my best, it's not working out. I need some help on how to make it happen. I'm in a very technical area of Research in Computer Science. In essence, I've spent the last decade honing my technical skills and making a mark for myself. My colleagues and trusted acquaintances tend to hold me in high esteem, trust my judgement and make all the necessary noises that lead me to believe I am valued.

I've never really been one to network much. I get on well with the people in my lab, socialise etc but I've never really played the networking game. I find it very very hard to go down to the pub and talk about general science or have strong opinions on pieces of work (partly personality based, partly because I am less knowledgeable than my peers). I find it even harder to do the dinners and drinks and other social events that seem to be the crux of networking. I've always relied on direct information transmission (read the paper, watch the talk, talk to the person when you have something relevant and useful to say) and have never been good at the "osmosis" side of things.

Recently (last 6 months) I have started forcing myself to do the networking but I find often people don't follow up or tend to forget about me and my work. In effect it's not making a difference and it's obvious I'm not making an impression but I can't seem to work out what I'm doing/not doing so. I'd appreciate any pointers geared towards either making this more effective for me. I'm tired of seeing colleagues progress while I languish based on the fact that they are more personally familiar with others.

Wifi for Dummies, or I Have a Little Netbook

still_wears_a_hat — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:57:44 -0800

I have a small netbook (Samsung NC10), running Windows XP, that I very much like for travel. But in some places, it doesn't connect to the internet over wifi. I've never tried to figure out why, or fix it: it's so far always been somewhere I could either skip being connected for a few days or plug directly into a router. But for an upcoming trip I'd like some help with a better plan and some tools and resources. To get ready so far, I've uninstalled/removed everything I didn't need, including an old VPN connection, deleted a lot of old wireless networks, and collected as much information as I was able to find about Windows XP not connecting to wifi. But it wasn't much, and some of it doesn't seem to apply to my netbook. I do have information finding and changing various wifi settings, restarting Wireless Zero Configuration and resetting Winsock. I also have copies of winsockxpfix.exe and MicrosoftFixit050203.msi that I will try running if I have a problem.

My question is - is there more information I should have? A good step-by-step guide somewhere I haven't found? A way to upgrade my netbook's networking to be mroe like Windows 7's (if that's any better)? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

(I guess a last resort option would be trying to upgrade the whole netbook OS to Windows 7, but I haven't had much success with OS upgrades in the past, and if the upgrade didn't work, I'm not sure I could reinstall XP. But if that's the best idea, I'd at least like to know that, then I could make up my mind.)

Network adapter address presets?

Sternmeyer — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 08:44:14 -0800

I am looking for something to help me quickly and easily change the IP address(es) I use on my laptop's network adapter. The operating system is Windows 7. Changing it is not an option.

My day job is in HVAC and industrial/commercial security. I regularly go to sites and wire myself into their network to access their equipment. Some sites need me to be set to automatically get an IP address, others need me to set a single address, and other still require me to have three, four, five or six IP addresses on my network adapter. Every time I go to a site, I manually change the IP address on my network adapter to suit the site. I keep track of the IPs for each site on my blackberry. Currently I have over forty sites that I need to change my IP information to access, and it is getting tiresome.

What I want is a way to have presets or saved configs for my network adapter so I can go in and click "YOUTH PRISON" or "CANCER CLINIC" or "FEDERAL OFFICE BUILDING" and have my network adapter load up the correct IPs. Is there such a thing? Is there something in Windows 7 that does this that I don't know about?

Planning for telnet on DHCP

BeeDo — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:20:23 -0800

I need some help on networking and ip addresses. I'm working on a project that uses a RN-XV Wifly module to connect to a home's wifi network. To use the device you will have a GUI that on the back-end telnets to the Wifly module and sends a serial string of commands. So if the Wifly address is 10.1.0.17, it would send: telnet 10.1.0.17 80
(text commands)
ctrl^] (escape character)
quit

If you are using static ips on your home network, no problem. But if you use dhcp, which is the standard out-of-the-box for just about every wireless router out there...

I don't know how people usually handle dhcp. Here's the order of events that concerns me.

1. Plug in device, it gets an IP address assigned from the wifi router using dhcp.
2. Get the IP address and write it into the script.
3. The script works, everything works, no problem.
4. Someone unplugs the device, and when it is plugged back in the router gives it a different dhcp address.
5. Now the script doesn't work because it is telneting to the wrong ip address.

What is the best practice for handling that case? Is there a unique identifier you can assign to a device that abstracts the ip address? Like if I do "telnet bob 80" and something somewhere knows "bob" is 10.1.0.17, where it is smart enough that if the ip address changes, "bob" changes too?

Thanks. I'm hoping for a solution that require no setting changes to the router, so changing to things like "dhcp and static ips" is not what I hope to do.

t-mobile unlocking in the uk for iphone

conrad101 — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 11:36:19 -0800

How can I unlock an iphone tied to t-mobile in the UK? I have received as a Christmas present an iphone which is locked to t-mobile. I am currently on an 02 contract that ties me for a further 6 months. Clearly, I would like to use my 02 sim with this iphone, however, when I went to a shop who specialised in phone unlocking, to get it unlocked, I was told that he could not unlock it and that it would take atleast a month to get t-mobile to unlock it. It was also mentioned that the merger of t-mobile in to the new company everything everywhere will probably delay the unlocking further. I am getting the impression that I will be forced to take out a t-mobile contract as it stands. Anyone out there have any recent knowledge about t-mobile unlocking. Many thanks!