Ubuntu

can't connect to other computers on my home network

Asked by Wiley Thomas

I have four computers on my home network. I have a Linksys wireless router connected to a 2Wire DSL modem. One computer (Vista) is connected to the Linksys router via wired connection. One laptop (XP), another laptop (Mac) and one desktop (Ubuntu 8.04) are connected wirelessly using DHCP from the Linksys router. All computers can browse the internet and, if I connect my printer (Canon MP 530 - USB) the two windows computers can share the printer.

Here's the problem. I want to use my Ubuntu desktop the printer connection but none of the other machines can connect to it. I've set up the printer and can print locally from the Ubuntu desktop but neither my Windows machines nor my mac can see the shared printer. I also can't connect to the Ubuntu machine using SSH (after installing and configuring SSH).

Here's an interesting observation. The first thing I did when I couldn't see the printer was ping the Ubuntu machine. It's address is 192.168.1.105 but when I ping it by name I get "Reply from 208.XX.XX.XXX" (there are real numbers there I just masked them).

I installed firestarter and tried allowing connections from my mac by name but this didn't resolve the problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

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Rodolphe Ortalo
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Karunesh Johri (kj-softprayog) said : 		#1

Your home computers form a network (intranet). On the Intranet the computers have IP address like 192.168.1.105. The router has two addresses one like 192.168.1,XXX and the other as 208.XX.XX.XXX. To the outside world only the address 208.XX.XX.XXX is visible and not addresses like 192.168.1.XXX.

However in your intranet, you should be able to access individual machines using addresses like 192.168.1.XXX. You need to find the addresses of your machines on the intranet. On Linux, you can do that using the command "ifconfig". Once you know the addresses, you can access the individual machines using the respective address.

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Wiley Thomas (wileythomas3) said : 		#2

I can receive a positive ping response from the "intranet" address 192.168.1.XXX but can't add a printer using this address. On my mac computer I'm using IPP and connecting to 192.168.1.105 but the printer is not visible.

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Best Rodolphe Ortalo (rodolphe-ortalo) said : 		#3

I have a linksys wireless device too, and I noticed when first using it that, in the default configuration, there is some firewalling done between the wireless network IP adresses and the wired ones. I'd suggest you hae a look the configuration of the linksys packet filter to check that its default security rules (NAT-ing possibly) are not at the source of your problem. If you have already checked that... well... maybe someone else will have a better answer.

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#4

Probably you just need to set up the print server in Ubuntu and then make sure you are using the right address/server from windows. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkPrintingWithUbuntu for more info. It's a bit out of date but the steps for 7.04 will probably work or something similar.

As for pinging the printer, does it have a unique IP? I would think it wouldn't as it's attached to a computer with an IP rather than being it's own network device so you probably won't be able to ping it. If you can ping the computer it's connected to that should be enough to verify a connection.

There shouldn't be any need to set up firewalling on the router. All LAN side traffic should be allowed by default as long as it's on the same subnet (which it is unless you changed things).

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Wiley Thomas (wileythomas3) said : 		#5

Thanks Rodolphe. that solved my problem.

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Wiley Thomas (wileythomas3) said : 		#6

Thanks Rodolphe Ortalo, that solved my question.

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Christopher (soft-kristal) said : 		#7

I have a similar, but stranger problem. I have four computers on my network; a desktop where the DSL and modem are, another Ethernet desktop about 50 feet away, a wireless laptop and a netbook.

The other three computers can access the second desktop, but not any other. Firestarter is configured to allow connections from each other's IP address.