How do I pursuade Linux to re-establish its links to my home network

What information is needed to rectify this?

Please tell us, verify, the ip of the Linux and Windows computers...

Thank you

I do apologise for not clarifying this earlier.

"Ubuntu 8.10" and two "Windows XP Home" machines (one a laptop and second is a Desktop)

Router is 192.168.1.1
Linux Ubuntu machine is 192.168.1.2
Windows XP machine (desktop) is 192.168.1.3
Windows XP machine (laptop) is 192.168.1.4

On a command-line on each machine does "ifconfig" on the Ubuntu machine and "ipconfig" on the Xp machines, reveal anything gone wrong? or is this how you got the ip addresses to us in the first place?

Good luck with this
Regards from
Tom :)

Ooops, sorry for the double post! I forgot to ask if each machine can ping the other 2 and the router? The command is the same on all machines of course. Simply

ping 192.168.1.1

on each to see how long data takes to get to the router and back for each machine. I guess that pinging each Xp machine from the other is a bit pointless and only really need to ping from one Xp machine to the Ubuntu one but doing all might be interesting.

Again, good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Output from ifconfig on Ubuntu machine: -
iang@iang-desktop:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:e2:14:a5:cf
          inet addr:192.168.1.2 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::200:e2ff:fe14:a5cf/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:43 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:80 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:18153 (18.1 KB) TX bytes:12456 (12.4 KB)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:84 (84.0 B) TX bytes:84 (84.0 B)

iang@iang-desktop:~$

As I don't know of a way to copy the output of Windows CMD ipconfig here I can only try to reproduce it by hand: -
Laptop
Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Local Area onnection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :RP614v4
IP Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .192.168.1.4
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192.168.1.1

Desktop
Windows IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter Local Area onnection:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :RP614v4
IP Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .192.168.1.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192.168.1.1

All machines appear to be able to ping each other with approximate round trip times in milliseconds of between 0 & 1 milliseconds.

I hope this is usefull - and what you wanted.

Nobody has mentioned firewalls. Do you have Firestarter on the Linux machine? Do the Windows machines have a firewall that can be configured?

I had to set the firewall on Windows to allow traffic between computers via LAN
In Firestarter I had to set the policy to each of the other Ip's

Never had a problem since

Check it out
Good luck
EA

I do have Firewalls on all machines - Firestarter on Ubuntu and Zonealarm on Windows machines.
They have not been altered (as far as I can tell) and were allowing communication between machines previously. You think something here needs resetting? - if so please tell as I have no idea when it comes to firewalls. - thanks

Open Firestarter, it will ask for your password, enter your login psw Firestarter GUI will open and show menubars etc. also three tabs, status, events and policy
open policy, there you should see the IP's of the other computers.if not: make sure you are going to add things to the "inbound traffic policy", click in the section "Allow connections from host" then click on "Add rule"
enter the IP of one computer, then add again and enter the other ip then click "Apply policy"
When done minimize Firestarter

I cannot answer in detail about your Windows Firewalls, but in mine which is Computer Associates, similar to zone alarm I could after some searching set the inbount to LAN only

further, if you have access to your router, there is a way of allowing only IP's with your specific submask.

I have not yet found it, but will search for it and post it later.

The router fix is on mine calle "Mac filter"

Thanks for this - it has kinda worked - but only one way. In that I can now see my windows machines on the Ubuntu machine but not the Ubuntu machine on the Windows machines. what can I do to complete this?

One thing is to make sure all computers are on the same workgroup.next look at Network places all of the computers should be listed, if so your next problem is how to read, and that is XP, you will have to mess with the Network Tasks to finally get through. Try "Add a Network place"
making sure the IP and shared file name are correct.such as "\\192.168.1.2\shared file name"

Any file you want to look at must have sharing set up
Go to the file's properties and select the "sharing" tab check "share this folder" do not allow other people to write.

Give this a try

EA

I thought it would be more a case of just fixing the Windows firewalls as fixing the Ubuntu firewall fixed the Ubuntu machines?

Ok - done this, but the problem seems to be that the Ubuntu machine has dropped out of MSHome workgroup which it was in originally - how do I reinstate it?

Windows is asking for something on the lines of:
\\server\share (shared folder)
but i am not sure what to put here to connect with the Ubuntu machine.

No - Apologies - it's cured.
Entering \\192.168.1.2\Ubuntu
has connected the Ubuntu machine to the wijndows machines.

Thanks for your help
problem seems to be solved. . . . . .for now.

If not - I'll be back.

Thanks ealthuis, that solved my question.

Great, happy to be able to help

EA

I think the "server" part of that is the name of your Ubuntu machine? If so find that by going up to the top taskbar and click on

Applications - Accessories - Terminal

and there it is! In my terminal/command window/console i see

tom@ubuntu804:~$

so you can see my machine's name is "ubuntu804" - not very original and will possibly soon be quite inaccurate, if i upgrade to 9.04. As i've made my "Public" folder have shared permisions then connecting into your network you'd tell the Windows machines

\\ubuntu804\Public

i think upper and lower case makes a difference for folder names but not for "server" names.

Hope this is right, good luck with this
Regards from
Tom :)

Ahhh, brilliant. Nice one chaps :)

Erm - not sure how to put this but - it hasn't quite worked as i thought.

I can now see the Ubuntu machine on the Windows machines - but only in "My Network Places".
I can't seem to get it recognised in the "MSHome" workgroup it was in originally - any ideas?

Unfortunately I only just got back here, I have no idea how to use the workgroup way you indicate. All of my connections to other machines have been through My Network Places. This includes the computers that are now Pure Linux but were WXP before (3 of them) the only WXP left is a dual boot with XP on one drive and Linux on another.

I've had trouble with this sort of thing in the past too. I installed PyNeighborhood from the repos and that seemed to let me change my workgroup name in Ubuntu but i was suffering much larger problems about this and eventually bodged a work-around using smb4k or something. Actually i subscribed to this thread to find answers!

It might be worth re-posting this as a new question because someone new at the front desk might be able to help with tweaking the network workgroup name, also it seems that ealthuis has done a great job of solving this current problem as posted. Time for a new question
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi :)

Have you been able to test the new Ubuntu 10.04 before it gets officially released?
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/testing/lucid/beta1
Trying it as a LiveCd or as an extra dual/multi-boot would be ideal. Developers and everyone are keen to try to iron out any problems before 10.04 gets officially released so you might find faster & more effective answers to your bug reports which would make 10.04 work better on your system for you

The error message "Failed to retrieve share list from server" seems to be caused by Windows Servers. Apparently there is a tick-box to prevent linux desktop machines from being able to use the Windows server!! Once you change the default to allow linux desktops then the problem is solved!

For appearing in the proper place inside the workgroup you only need to edit the "smb.conf" but it's worth backing-up that file first as it is a system file

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)