Help with network please

Steve

I posted this on the Mandriva newsgroup, but no replies yet. Can
anuone here help please?

I have an oddity which I don't understand. I'm running Mandriva
2005LE as my main desktop with a local network behind a smoothwall
box. Until now, the network has only been for distributing
internet to 2 or 3 machines.

I've added a windows box and I want to be able to put/take files
from it. I've set it up with a shared directory and created a
guest user account. I can read/write to it from another windows
computer without any problems.

Under 'Samba mount points' MCC finds the new computer and the
shared disk and lets me define its mount point. When I try to
mount it there's a long delay and then nothing.

fstab has a new line in it: (sorry if there's a linefeed)

//newbox/F /mnt/newbox/F smbfs
credentials=/etc/samba/auth.newbox.guest 0 0

If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the
following:
timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
6743: Connection to newbox failed
SMB connection failed

Whois gives 209.62.20.179 as belonging to Everyone's Internet in
Texas. My local network uses 192.168.1.100-200 for the computers.

Can anyone explain what's going on and how I make it work as intended?

I'm an analogue designer, not a computer guy, so please keep it
simple for me.

Thanks,

Steve

John Taylor

Steve wrote:

>
> If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the following:
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
> Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
> 6743: Connection to newbox failed
> SMB connection failed
>
> Whois gives 209.62.20.179 as belonging to Everyone's Internet in Texas.
> My local network uses 192.168.1.100-200 for the computers.
>
> Can anyone explain what's going on and how I make it work as intended?
>

Sounds like your machine doesn't know how about newbox

Try adding newbox into /etc/hosts

Regards
JohnT

Ian Rawlings

On 2007-12-05, John Taylor <> wrote:

> Sounds like your machine doesn't know how about newbox
>
> Try adding newbox into /etc/hosts

Probably worth him trying it with the IP addresses in fstab too, that
would prevent any errors with stuff like DNS tagging domain names on
in manners he's not expecting, IP addresses are harder to get confused
with at this stage of tracking his problem down.

--
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!

Steve

Ian Rawlings wrote:
> On 2007-12-05, John Taylor <> wrote:
>
>> Sounds like your machine doesn't know how about newbox
>>
>> Try adding newbox into /etc/hosts
>
> Probably worth him trying it with the IP addresses in fstab too, that
> would prevent any errors with stuff like DNS tagging domain names on
> in manners he's not expecting, IP addresses are harder to get confused
> with at this stage of tracking his problem down.
>
The /etc/hosts entry has fixed it. I tried the IP in fstab
separately and got messages about not being able to resolve an
address. I didn't investigate further, it's something I'll have to
learn about when time permits.

Thanks both.

Steve

Chris Davies

Steve <no-one@home.invalid> wrote:
> fstab has a new line in it:
> //newbox/F /mnt/newbox/F smbfs credentials=/etc/samba/auth.newbox.guest 0 0

> If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the
> following:
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
> Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
> 6743: Connection to newbox failed
> SMB connection failed

Sounds like you've got a name resolution problem on the (Mandriva) client.

What's supposed to happen is that when you use an unqualified name,
such as "newbox", your name resolver appends your local domain and tries
to resolve that. If this fails then it works through a specified search
list appending domains and looking for the first match.

What I suspect is happening is that you've either not got a definition
for "newbox" in your /etc/hosts, or that your name resolver search path
is wrong.

Can you post the output of the following, please:

grep -i newbox /etc/hosts

cat /etc/resolv.conf

grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf

Chris

Steve

On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:11:06 +0000, Chris Davies wrote:

> Steve <no-one@home.invalid> wrote:
>> fstab has a new line in it:
>> //newbox/F /mnt/newbox/F smbfs credentials=/etc/samba/auth.newbox.guest 0 0
>
>> If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the
>> following:
>> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
>> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
>> Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
>> 6743: Connection to newbox failed
>> SMB connection failed
>
> Sounds like you've got a name resolution problem on the (Mandriva) client.
>
> What's supposed to happen is that when you use an unqualified name,
> such as "newbox", your name resolver appends your local domain and tries
> to resolve that. If this fails then it works through a specified search
> list appending domains and looking for the first match.
>
> What I suspect is happening is that you've either not got a definition
> for "newbox" in your /etc/hosts, or that your name resolver search path
> is wrong.
>
> Can you post the output of the following, please:
>
> grep -i newbox /etc/hosts
>
> cat /etc/resolv.conf
>
> grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf
Following a previous suggestion I added
192.168.0.197 newbox
to /etc/hosts and things sprang into life. The only entry previously was
127.0.0.1 localhost

In the intersts of learning more here's the results you asked for:
grep -i newbox /etc/hosts returns
192.168.0.197 newbox
and nothing if I delete the 'newbox' line in /etc/hosts

cat /etc/resolv.conf returns
nameserver 192.168.0.1 (the IP address of my smoothwall box)

grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf returns
#hosts: db files nisplus nis dns
hosts: files nisplus nis dns

what is my 'local domain' in the context of resolving the server name?

Thanks

Steve

Martin Gregorie

Steve wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:11:06 +0000, Chris Davies wrote:
>
>> Steve <no-one@home.invalid> wrote:
>>> fstab has a new line in it:
>>> //newbox/F /mnt/newbox/F smbfs credentials=/etc/samba/auth.newbox.guest 0 0
>>> If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the
>>> following:
>>> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
>>> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
>>> Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
>>> 6743: Connection to newbox failed
>>> SMB connection failed
>> Sounds like you've got a name resolution problem on the (Mandriva) client.
>>
>> What's supposed to happen is that when you use an unqualified name,
>> such as "newbox", your name resolver appends your local domain and tries
>> to resolve that. If this fails then it works through a specified search
>> list appending domains and looking for the first match.
>>
>> What I suspect is happening is that you've either not got a definition
>> for "newbox" in your /etc/hosts, or that your name resolver search path
>> is wrong.
>>
>> Can you post the output of the following, please:
>>
>> grep -i newbox /etc/hosts
>>
>> cat /etc/resolv.conf
>>
>> grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf
> Following a previous suggestion I added
> 192.168.0.197 newbox
> to /etc/hosts and things sprang into life. The only entry previously was
> 127.0.0.1 localhost
>
> In the intersts of learning more here's the results you asked for:
> grep -i newbox /etc/hosts returns
> 192.168.0.197 newbox
> and nothing if I delete the 'newbox' line in /etc/hosts
>
> cat /etc/resolv.conf returns
> nameserver 192.168.0.1 (the IP address of my smoothwall box)
>
> grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf returns
> #hosts: db files nisplus nis dns
> hosts: files nisplus nis dns
>
> what is my 'local domain' in the context of resolving the server name?
>
Probably 'localdomain' Its usual for the default /etc/hosts to contain
the line

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain

It might pay to define a private domain name for use only by hosts on
your local LAN. I've used my external domain name, which works for me.
Rename your hosts to have fully qualified names and either run an
internal DNS server for your LAN or distribute the same /etc/hosts file
around all the hosts on the LAN.

I use a private DNS which doubles as a local name cache, but then I
wanted to find out about the care and feeding of a DNS. If I was using
/etc/hosts files, which is perfectly reasonable for a small network,
mine would all look something like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
192.168.7.1 hellsgate hellsgate.gregorie.org # router
192.168.7.2 zoogz zoogz.gregorie.org # house server
192.168.7.3 cretin cretin.gregorie.org # slow laptop
192.168.7.4 pc pc.gregorie.org # Windoze box

HTH


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Es***, UK
org |

Chris Davies

Steve <no-one@home.invalid> wrote:
> fstab has a new line in it:
> //newbox/F /mnt/newbox/F smbfs credentials=/etc/samba/auth.newbox.guest 0 0

> If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the
> following:
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
> Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
> 6743: Connection to newbox failed
> SMB connection failed

Sounds like you've got a name resolution problem on the (Mandriva) client.

What's supposed to happen is that when you use an unqualified name,
such as "newbox", your name resolver appends your local domain and tries
to resolve that. If this fails then it works through a specified search
list appending domains and looking for the first match.

What I suspect is happening is that you've either not got a definition
for "newbox" in your /etc/hosts, or that your name resolver search path
is wrong.

Can you post the output of the following, please:

grep -i newbox /etc/hosts

cat /etc/resolv.conf

grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf

Chris

Chris Davies

Steve <no-one@home.invalid> wrote:
> fstab has a new line in it:
> //newbox/F /mnt/newbox/F smbfs credentials=/etc/samba/auth.newbox.guest 0 0

> If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the
> following:
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
> Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
> 6743: Connection to newbox failed
> SMB connection failed

Sounds like you've got a name resolution problem on the (Mandriva) client.

What's supposed to happen is that when you use an unqualified name,
such as "newbox", your name resolver appends your local domain and tries
to resolve that. If this fails then it works through a specified search
list appending domains and looking for the first match.

What I suspect is happening is that you've either not got a definition
for "newbox" in your /etc/hosts, or that your name resolver search path
is wrong.

Can you post the output of the following, please:

grep -i newbox /etc/hosts

cat /etc/resolv.conf

grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf

Chris

Steve

On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:11:06 +0000, Chris Davies wrote:

> Steve <no-one@home.invalid> wrote:
>> fstab has a new line in it:
>> //newbox/F /mnt/newbox/F smbfs credentials=/etc/samba/auth.newbox.guest 0 0
>
>> If I go to command line as su and mount /mnt/newbox/F I get the
>> following:
>> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:445
>> timeout connecting to 209.62.20.179:139
>> Error connecting to 209.62.20.179 (Operation already in progress)
>> 6743: Connection to newbox failed
>> SMB connection failed
>
> Sounds like you've got a name resolution problem on the (Mandriva) client.
>
> What's supposed to happen is that when you use an unqualified name,
> such as "newbox", your name resolver appends your local domain and tries
> to resolve that. If this fails then it works through a specified search
> list appending domains and looking for the first match.
>
> What I suspect is happening is that you've either not got a definition
> for "newbox" in your /etc/hosts, or that your name resolver search path
> is wrong.
>
> Can you post the output of the following, please:
>
> grep -i newbox /etc/hosts
>
> cat /etc/resolv.conf
>
> grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf
Following a previous suggestion I added
192.168.0.197 newbox
to /etc/hosts and things sprang into life. The only entry previously was
127.0.0.1 localhost

In the intersts of learning more here's the results you asked for:
grep -i newbox /etc/hosts returns
192.168.0.197 newbox
and nothing if I delete the 'newbox' line in /etc/hosts

cat /etc/resolv.conf returns
nameserver 192.168.0.1 (the IP address of my smoothwall box)

grep -i hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf returns
#hosts: db files nisplus nis dns
hosts: files nisplus nis dns

what is my 'local domain' in the context of resolving the server name?

Thanks

Steve