Re: How naked am I?
28/04/2011 09:45, pecondon@mesanetworks.net wrote:
> Day before yesterday (26 apr 2011) I installed newly released software on my wheezy computers on my home LAN. Yesterday,
I woke up to find that none of these computers could communicate with
my router (a DLink DI-604, no longer offered by DLink).
> I established that it was not bad cables by swapping cables. Every cable worked in some situation, but none worked when connected
>to the router. This has been working since early 2005, through many software upgrades, but yesterday not so great.
>
> Strange part of the problem is that an Apple AirPort which was also connected to the router for use by my daughter with her
> Mac laptop continued to function through multiple cable changes and power cyclings. But late afternoon, it also quit.
>
> I had been having some paranoid fears about the DLink router over the last month and decided to go out and buy a more modern
> home grade router at Best Buy (brand name Netgear, the box said it worked with Linux). I brought it home and more difficulties.
>These computers all have wheezy installed using a business card CD of squeeze. To change / fix /experiment with different software,
>I need a working Internet connection, but I can't configure my new router because I can't ping it. But the Apple AirPort seems to be
>happy with the new router without any configuration, so I try to install Squeeze on one of my computers and just using whatever DHCP
>gets found by the new router, or whatever resources the business-card CD can access.
>
> It works! My one computer gets loaded with Squeeze and allows me to log on to my ISP's web mail access to my email account via
>Iceweasel browser. So I can pester you wonderful people for help. My first issue is: I have done nothing about NAT or
> any sort of firewalling. Does the way I installed, using DHCP service from somewhere (perhaps coded into the busiCard CD??)
> Does that include firewalling by default? What do I have in the way of protection? Any?
>
> How do I discover what, exactly I have? Etc. How naked am I?
>
> Paul E Condon
> pecondon@mesanetworks.net
>
>
Hi, you are taking chances with spam filter with such a subject line !
My experience with Netgear home routers (currently a WNR3500L) suggest
you could start with 192.168.1.1 in you web browser, that should get you
to the config page of the router. Default user usually is "admin",
password is the same I think.
I don't think your problem lies with a firewall issue, there is none
activated on a standard Debian install if I recall correctly, and the
router default are rather permissive usually. Maybe you have fix ip
addresses in a wrong range on the other pc's, or a "gateway" statement
somewhere with a wrong ip for the new router ?
On your newly installed Squeeze computer the Debian installer used the
router dhcp server to get an ip address, it means this works fine. If
the other boxes can't get a proper IP it means they have a problem, not
the router.
If they are using wireless the other gotcha may be the various "security
association" features used by some routers, some kind of MAC address
filtering or "pairing" necessary ?
LAN connection problems aside, if you are worried about who could break
in you home network from the outside, look at what web-facing services
you are running, on which port(s). If none then you are fine, just
refrain from using the Adobe flash plugin ;-). Your router is most
probably doing NAT as a default.
You can also use an external port scanning service to test your router
settings like "ShieldsUP" from http://www.grc.com/ .
Reply to: