[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


I have a lab of 10 iMacs running Jaguar, all networked through a single AirPort station (with DHCP).

When I "Go to Server...", the list of available Macs is usually two or three (or even four or five) short of the complete list. (File sharing and web sharing are _on_ on all computers. Each Mac is visible to at least one other Mac, so I know all of them _can_ be seen.) If I cancel the operation and "Go to Server..." again, I can sometimes pick up more Macs, but sometimes others will drop off of the list. Some Macs steadfastly refuse to recognize certain other individuals. On rare occasions, I get a full list. As far as I can tell, success or failure has nothing to do with whether the target Macs are awake or asleep or logged into or whatever.

Is there something I can do to ensure that every Mac shows up every time?

Perhaps relatedly, some of the Macs show up in the list with a location "local", while others show up with a location "DEFAULT". (And only the "DEFAULT" ones --or is it the "local" ones?-- enable the "Add to Favorites" button.) What's up with that?


Regards,

Day Late Don

[DayLateDon]

Bump.

This is getting really frustrating (and is making our Mac lab something of a laughing stock among some of our Windows-bred teachers).

Today --after updating to 10.2.1, which I hoped would magically solve the problems-- I mapped out who sees whom, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. One point of consistency: If Mac A sees Mac B, then Mac B sees Mac A. But there are still Macs C that A can see but B cannot, and Macs D that B can see but A cannot. (The time required for the "Searching ..." process that compiles the list of available servers is annoyingly long, as well.)

Even worse: In scarily many instances (a third or more of cases), I get "-36" errors when trying to make an actual connection between the Macs that can see each other. (I don't always get the error when I try the connection the other way.)


I'm beginning to long for the days of AppleShare and the Chooser.


Any help?

Day Late Don

[Gul Banana]

Check the Sharing prefpane on each mac to see if they have the firewall turned on...

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


Firewall off. (Checked and double-checked today.)


Thanks,

Don

[Brass]

Are they all on the same subnet? (I don't know if that matters or not, but it might be worth checking).

I've certainly not seen that problem on any of the Mac networks here (Ethernet, or Aiport).

Are you able to connect to the Macs that don't appear by entering their full URL, eg:

afp://mac.domain.com/

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


I'm almost-certain all Macs are on the same subnet. (I never bothered with a subnet setting; I just enabled DHCP and AirPort.) I'll double-check that.

I made a couple of unsuccessful attempts with the URL approach a week or so ago (but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to make that work). I'll give that another shot.




Regards,

DayLateDon

[raviruddarraju]

Originally posted by DayLateDon:
Hello ...


I'm almost-certain all Macs are on the same subnet. (I never bothered with a subnet setting; I just enabled DHCP and AirPort.) I'll double-check that.

I made a couple of unsuccessful attempts with the URL approach a week or so ago (but I didn't spend a lot of time trying to make that work). I'll give that another shot.




Regards,

DayLateDon

In general, network sharing is not perfect. From my experience in college dorm rooms, which have 100s of computers all around, I found that networked computers do not always (100%) show up. IMHO, this is a general bahavior. I think you cannot expect 100%.

- Ravi

[El Pre$idente]

My Macs have been doing the same. For no reason and with all settings correct, my Ti800 was finding my iMac but not my Ti550. It did work the other day but not today. Settings hadn't changed since.

So much for Rendezvous 'computers find each other automatically'.

[Appleman]

Same here with Ti500 and Bondi iMac connected by Airport.
One day yes, one day no, sometimes it helps to log out, sometimes it helps to shutdown and start up.
Never change the settings of the iMac (ethernet cable) but TiBook of course has dynamic ip, like starting from f.i. 10.0.1.1; 10.0.1.2; ....3 etc.
So that does change.

[dr. zoidberg]

very same problems here. and since jaguar, it actually got worse... now i can see my pcs hanging in there, but sometimes ALL of the other macs are plain gone. and it�s annoying...

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


If nothing else, I'm happy to know that I'm not alone in this.

(I _do_ long for AppleShare and the Chooser. They _were_ 100% ... and they made me seem like a networking _genius_ for our school. Rendezvous is --and is making me-- an embarrassment. More importantly, it's interfering with workflow, as teachers who had been comfortable file sharing across the network before are finding themselves unable to access remote files reliably ... or at all. )

Maybe by 10.3 this will all be straightened out.


Any ideas on why some Macs are listed with location "local" and some as "DEFAULT"? Connections aren't any more reliable for either case, but I'm curious.


Regards,

DayLateDon

[piracy]

This has nothing to do with Rendezvous sucking. And you still can use AppleTalk, if need be. And yep, AppleShare is still around too. (You said you longed for the days of AppleTalk and AppleShare...well, they're both still around! In fact, "AppleShare" is not going anywhere.)

Machines showing up in local are Rendezvous-discovered devices, and DEFAULT are SLP-discovered devices. If your configurations don't differ, I wonder why you're seeing both...

There's a couple things you can try. First, I don't know if your AirPort base station(s) is acting as a bridge to the wired network, or if it's assigning IP addresses on its own. Which is happening here?

Another item is that you can implicitly put 'local' in as a search domain in each of the computers' Network settings. Ensure they indeed all are on the same subnet and have the same DNS info. If AirPort is each computers' only connection to the internet, disable all other network ports in the Network pref pane, such that AirPort is the only thing left active.

You said you longed for AppleTalk; well, why not try using it then? Simply enable AppleTalk on all the machines (in the Network pref pane on the AppleTalk tab), and test the result. The Connect To Server dialog has the capability to browse AppleTalk.

(Side note: AppleTalk NEEDED TO GO. This was not some arbitrary decision by Apple designed to make Mac-admins-who-long-for-the-days-of-yesteryear's lives difficult. The trend in enterprises and large academic institutions in rolling out new networks is to go IP only. IPX? Gone. AppleTalk? Gone. It's IP only going forward.)

[ThisGuy]

Is it possible that your router is having trouble with Appletalk? I am a novice to this, but my Linksys doesn't support it, so I have to connect to the other Macs on my network using IP.

[voodoo]

I know this problem with not finding computers (Macs at least, dunno about PeeCees) that are supposed to be sharing. File sharing turned on on both. Connected together with an ethernet cable. Ethernet port selected, placed highest and all other network ports off. Connect to server

............................. wham! <<NOTHING>>!!!

More searching...................... KAZAM!!! <<VACUUM>>

Fine, sure it may work (in some parallell dimension) but I sure havn't gotten it to work automatically.

I resorted to decide a permanent IP for each machine and writing it manually. The Mac couldn't find it's arse automatically!

This has been since 10.0.0 ... then 10.0.4 same... 10.1 ditto and 10.1.5 nothing changed. Jaguar (10.2) and 10.2.1 fare no better when connecting to servers.

Crap!

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...

piracy:

My (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) longing for the Chooser and AppleShare has more to do with the _mechanism_ and its reliability. Open Chooser, click AppleShare, and every single Mac on the network appears instantly. No lengthy "Searching..." process, no missed Macs (unless the battery died and its AppleTalk port was reset to the Printer Port), no -36 errors when I try to connect. Ah, the good old days ... (Hmmmm ... Maybe I should just put the Chooser into the Dock and connect through Classic.)

Thanks for the "local/DEFAULT" clarification. It's true, though: Identical configurations on all Macs, but some are "local" and some are "DEFAULT".

AirPort Base Station acting as bridge to wired network, and it's assigning IP addresses.

I've _ex_plicitly put "local" in as a search domain in each of the computers' Network settings. (I'd read that as a tip for printer sharing.) Haven't been back to the lab to check subnet and DNS info, but I'm pretty sure they're identical. (This, of course, will be where the trouble lies.) The only active port on each of these Macs is the AirPort.

AppleTalk is enabled on all Macs.


ThisGuy:

The router's the same one we've used since the OS 8 days. AppleTalk is not a problem.

voodoo:

I'll try assigning static IP addresses.



Thanks for the input,

DayLateDon

[Appleman]

I guess the name Rendezvous actually should be Randomvous

[El Pre$idente]

Originally posted by Appleman:
I guess the name Rendezvous actually should be Randomvous

Nah. It's going to be renamed Au Contrair.

[Ibson]

Originally posted by El Pre$idente:


Nah. It's going to be renamed Au Contrair.

Or �a marche...quelquefois.

[smeger]

You said that the airport base station is bridged to ethernet and assigning IP addresses. You also said that all of the macs have airport as their only selected network interface. I'm assuming that all of the macs are, indeed, using a wireless connection.

If there are multiple machines on the LAN providing IP addresses, only the machines on the same subnet will be able to see one another. This may be your problem.

For example, I recently dealt with a network that used a Linux box using NAT that acted as a gateway & firewall. It ran a DHCP server that provided addresses to anything on the LAN that requested one. These addresses were in the 192.168 range.

One of the devices on the LAN was an Apple Airport Base Station. It would get an IP in the 192.168 range from the Linux box, and then provide addresses to the wireless machines on the LAN. These addresses were in the 10.0.0 subnet.

The two subnets could not see one another. But once I changed the network config so that the base station was the only device that got an IP from the Linux gateway and all of the other machines got an IP from the base station, everything worked beautifully.

Sorry about the long post. I hope this helps!

[Mithras]

Here's my advice:

1. Leave them DHCP if you must, but if you can give them static IPs.
2. Turn off Appletalk if you can manage.
3. On each Mac, open Utilities/Directory Access:
* turn off SLP and Appletalk for Service Discovery.

That may help smooth things out.

good luck

Do not use DHCP and Ethernet bridging if you are connected to a larger network that already has DHCP. The machines are probably getting confused and may be screwing up the rest of the network.

I suggest giving each iMac a static IP (10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2, ...) and trying that out.

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


Okay, I've tried a few of the suggestions, but can't claim success in any case. Probably my fault for missing a toggle here or there when working on different solutions.

(Interesting note: The state of things changes over time. I accidentally tried to print from one iMac to a USB printer shared from another Mac, but it was a Mac that would give a "-36" error if I tried to connect directly. This causes Print Center to go into a trance with the progress bar spinning, reporting that it can't find the printer; when it's in this state, Print Center is completely locked up and won't even let me kill the print jobs. (I guess I could've done it from the Process Viewer.) However, after logging out and going about other business in the lab, I find some half-hour or so later the printer firing up and printing out my documents. Go figure.)


Anyway, it's probably better to stop trying to figure out how to fix what I've probably done wrong and to ask what I should have done right from the get-go. So, let's take this from the tippy top.


We have a(n AppleTalk compatible) router connected to the Internet.

The router is connected to an ethernet switch that feeds into five AirPort Base Stations that cover our school building, an additional wired switch that connects to small enclave of OS 8.6-running PowerMacs with a LaserWriter, and eventually directly into an Xserve.

A Lab cluster of iMacs (and a couple of isolated iMacs and iBooks in other locations) connect to the network via AirPort. (We also have a few USB printers connected to iMacs throughout that we want to share, along with that LaserWriter.) In a couple of weeks, we'll be adding a (thankfully) small number of wireless-enabled Windows 98 machines to the mix. At any time, a computer may be in range of two AirPort Stations (which are pretty much laid out in a straight line).


Now ... How would YOU configure this network? Specifically, what settings would you provide for the AirPort Base Stations ("Distribute IP", etc), and what settings for the iMacs (in "Network" and "Sharing", including "Firewall" (which I haven't yet enabled but probably should))? The PowerMacs should be no problem.

(I'm really hoping I don't have to fuss with the Windows machines --we have another guy that does that-- but in case I do, I could probably use some pointers.)


Thanks for the help. This stuff is causing a real crisis of Apple faith around here.



Regards,

DayLateDon

[Deal]

Have you reset the base stations (paperclip method)?

Have you upgraded the firmware on the base stations? Make sure they are all the same.

If roaming is enabled you they all have to be on the same subnet with the same login and password.

Here is some info from apples website you may have checked already:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120061

There is also a document for OS 9. I think if you do some serious diggin in the apple support area you will come up with some answers.

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


The stations are all new (although graphite), unpacked and installed just a couple of weeks ago, with updated firmware. They've also been "soft" reset numerous times (due to changes in naming schemes, password choices, and location descriptions, etc), although I haven't taken a paperclip to any of them. Each has its own IP address (10.0.1.x) and the same subnet mask (255.255.255.0). The network has been configured for roaming, apparently successfully. (I can roam with my iBook all over campus and remain in contact with the network.)

I don't think the AirPort network, in and of itself, is the problem. (Each computer can connect to the Internet through them just fine, for instance.) If anything, I believe it's a setting (say, with DHCP or IP distribution), that could be conflicting with Jag/Rendezvous network configurations in ways that elude me.

Then again, it's often the thing you're most sure is right that ends up being wrong. And I _am_ interested in thinking this process through from the beginning. I'll double-check our settings and read through the Apple troubleshooting links.


Thanks,

DayLateDon

[djc6]

I was having this problem today as well... two macs, couldn't see each other, couldn't share files (got the same error = -36).

Then I noticed something... not only did file sharing not work between the machines, the two computers couldn't ping eachother. But everything else - internet and local network - worked fine. These two machines just couldn't talk to eachother.

The fix was to unplug the network switch and plug it back in. A while ago I had moved around what ports machines in my lab were plugged into, and the switch never updated its internal mac address table. So it was sending traffic to the wrong ports, but only between those two computers.

Please see if your lab machines can ping eachother, I'd be interested to know.

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...

The results of the ping test were, well, frustrating.

I reset our main network switch (and "soft" restarted all base stations). I created a brand-spanking new Location for each Mac, including a manually-entered IP address (10.36.1.201-210). Then I went a-pinging.

Each Mac is pingable by another Mac, but no Mac is pingable (or can ping) _every_ other Mac; some can ping fewer than half. Moreover, there's no relation between pingability and a Mac's listing in the "Connect to Server" dialog (pingable and non-pingable Macs are listed, and pingable and non-pingable Macs are not listed). As expected, non-pingable Macs gave -36 errors when I tried to connect, while pingable Macs connected fine (via afp://IP).

Perhaps the most important realization to come from the test is that pingability changes over time. If I can't ping now, I might ping later. (This might account for a few instances where Mac A pings Mac B, but not vice versa; it took time for me to get to Mac B to do the ping test.) This suggests, I suppose, that the networking hardware (main switch and/or base stations) are at fault, but I don't know what could have changed with them since a few weeks ago when they worked fine.


I don't know if this is at all related, but it's puzzling. Before the latest round of testing, this _never_ happened in Jag: now the "Connect to Server" dialog includes "*", "Local", and "WORKGROUP" items. Well, SOMETIMES. Some Macs show _only_ those items, some Macs show those items interspersed with names of Macs, and some only show the names of Macs; which Mac does which changes over time as well. I noticed in some cases that if I left the "Connect to Server" dialog open for some ridiculously long amount of time (30+ minutes), those items would appear if they hadn't initially, but I don't know if this happens in general.


Any new insights on any of this?


Thanks and regards,

DayLateDon

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...

The latest:

Just for kicks, I've turned off all AppleTalk stuff (no AppleTalk enabled on any Mac, and Directory Services set to not use AppleTalk). Turning off SLP slashes the number of Macs that show up in the "Connect to Server" dialog. If I recall correctly, disabling Rendezvous and SMB has no effect.


Looking toward a hardware solution, I have also swapped out our switch with another one.

For a while, I thought this handled everything. From my iBook, I could instantly ping all Macs (before it had been touch and go). However, back in the lab, not every Mac can ping every other Mac. Moreover, even a pingable Mac gave me connection troubles.

(Most annoyingly, the iBook aborted a file transfer with error -50, and later had a kernel panic during a separate file transfer.)


To add to this misery, someone inadvertently tried to print to a shared printer on an unconnectable Mac. This has completely locked up Print Center: the files remain in the print queue, but none of the job-related commands (hold, stop) are enabled.



I am seriously approaching my wits' end with this stuff, and the teachers are moving past disappointed, jumping over frustrated, and landing at downright angry with regard to these continuing problems. (And it's not exactly good for my self esteem to know that I have single-handedly, and quite royally, fouled up the easiest networking system on the planet.)


HELP!

[K++]

Well these problems are impossible that they are machine specific.

I think I have an idea of what is going on. YOu said you have some machines using 8.6? If so then, can these machines talk to the machines using X.2 correctly/reliably? If not, then your problem is AppleTalk/TCPIP the thing is that prior to 9 AppleTalk was actual AppleTalk, after that it was switched over to Appletalk over TCP/IP, so im guessing Apple has gotten lazy in supporting its old technologies. So check to see if you can get 9 on the 8.6 machiens and check on AppleTalk over TCP/IP.

Okay the other possibility is faulty cabling, you should get a network admin to check the cables for thier signal reliability. Also try pinging all the other machines using "ping -s 1000" that way your sending larger packets and look at the reliability statistics.

The last and final thing that it could be, is that perhaps through no fault of your own, someone is actually messing with the network? Now this is a remote possibility I admit, but it could happen. Turn on SMB and see if you can get to the macs from the windows boxes. And if you can get to them, can you get to ALL of them? Just choose a random Windows machine and ping all the macs from a non-Mac machine.

[Target Practice]

Originally posted by K++:
Well these problems are impossible that they are machine specific.

I think I have an idea of what is going on. YOu said you have some machines using 8.6? If so then, can these machines talk to the machines using X.2 correctly/reliably? If not, then your problem is AppleTalk/TCPIP the thing is that prior to 9 AppleTalk was actual AppleTalk, after that it was switched over to Appletalk over TCP/IP, so im guessing Apple has gotten lazy in supporting its old technologies. So check to see if you can get 9 on the 8.6 machiens and check on AppleTalk over TCP/IP.

This makes sense. I am having the same problems as DayLateDon at my new job after some of us upgraded to 10.2 (e.g., unreliable Mac-to-Mac connections, can't ping the server from 10.2, etc.) The office uses Windows 2000 server with AppleTalk services to support about 10 Macs and a handful of PCs. I want to replace the Win2K box with a Mac running OS X Server, because I haven't been able to solve this problem. I've ruled out faulty cabling in a number of circumstances.

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by K++:
Well these problems are impossible that they are machine specific.

I think I have an idea of what is going on. YOu said you have some machines using 8.6? If so then, can these machines talk to the machines using X.2 correctly/reliably? If not, then your problem is AppleTalk/TCPIP the thing is that prior to 9 AppleTalk was actual AppleTalk, after that it was switched over to Appletalk over TCP/IP, so im guessing Apple has gotten lazy in supporting its old technologies. So check to see if you can get 9 on the 8.6 machiens and check on AppleTalk over TCP/IP.

Okay the other possibility is faulty cabling, you should get a network admin to check the cables for thier signal reliability. Also try pinging all the other machines using "ping -s 1000" that way your sending larger packets and look at the reliability statistics.

The last and final thing that it could be, is that perhaps through no fault of your own, someone is actually messing with the network? Now this is a remote possibility I admit, but it could happen. Turn on SMB and see if you can get to the macs from the windows boxes. And if you can get to them, can you get to ALL of them? Just choose a random Windows machine and ping all the macs from a non-Mac machine.

I think you are confusing the terms appleshare and appletalk. Classic mac networking is Appletalk via Appleshare. OS 9 added TCP/IP via Appleshare. This is the default networking in 10.

You can tell the difference by the url

Appletalk afp://<host>
TCP/IP afp:/at/<host>

[piracy]

Originally posted by Mr Scruff:

You can tell the difference by the url

Appletalk afp://<host>
TCP/IP afp:/at/<host>

You've got your url's reversed, but yes, you are correct. This is a common topic of confusion. Here's a rundown:

AppleShare - a method of connecting to servers over some type of network

AppleShare over AppleTalk (usually just called AppleShare) - the AppleShare service, run over the AppleTalk networking protocol

AppleShare IP - the AppleShare service, run over TCP/IP

AppleTalk - a networking protocol that can run over a variety of media

EtherTalk - AppleTalk on ethernet

LocalTalk - AppleTalk over the LocalTalk physical media standard; also applies to PhoneNET

[piracy]

Originally posted by DayLateDon:
HELP!

Just out of curiosity, is your switch configured to autonegotiate each port, or are they nailed at 100mbit or something like that?

[voodoo]

Whatever. You can wonder what it's called, what protocol it runs or you can try to think of an 'logical' explaination. The fact remains.

Connect to server desn't frickin work properly!

It's crap. It is rotten, misshapen, ill conceived. It does not seamlessly find and connect to another computer. No matter how it is configured it won't work, with ONE exception

this:

If you give each Mac a predetermined IP adress (no DHCP or any other method) and manually write it in the 'connect to server' adress line:

afp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

THEN it works. It seems unable to find this IP adress by itself. That is frustraiting $%"$#"%$#!

[K++]

Originally posted by Mr Scruff:


I think you are confusing the terms appleshare and appletalk. Classic mac networking is Appletalk via Appleshare. OS 9 added TCP/IP via Appleshare. This is the default networking in 10.

You can tell the difference by the url

Appletalk afp://<host>
TCP/IP afp:/at/<host>

Yea I am, I always do it and rather than check it over before say it, I just hope others can figure it out.

[K++]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Whatever. You can wonder what it's called, what protocol it runs or you can try to think of an 'logical' explaination. The fact remains.

Connect to server desn't frickin work properly!

It's crap. It is rotten, misshapen, ill conceived. It does not seamlessly find and connect to another computer. No matter how it is configured it won't work, with ONE exception

this:

If you give each Mac a predetermined IP adress (no DHCP or any other method) and manually write it in the 'connect to server' adress line:

afp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

THEN it works. It seems unable to find this IP adress by itself. That is frustraiting $%"$#"%$#!

Conenct to server does work, Im on a college lan with hundreds of other macs, and gues whatm they all connect reliably, then again all these machines are running 9 or X(.1 or .2) which is ehy I feel the problem is most likely 8.6.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by K++:

Conenct to server does work, Im on a college lan with hundreds of other macs, and gues whatm they all connect reliably, then again all these machines are running 9 or X(.1 or .2) which is ehy I feel the problem is most likely 8.6.

Nope. It most certainly does not work properly. I am talking about connecting TWO macs together with an ETHERNET CABLE.

That must be about the simplest net you can make. Does it work? Not really. Only in the way I have described.

Hooking up and sharing files with an ethernet cable was always a breeze with OS 9. Now it's not.

Now, it's tricky.

[K++]

was it crossover or regular cable? That might matter mowadays, in the days of 9 it didn't.

[sodamnregistered2]

I have a small art lab.

3 linux servers, 4 macs (three jag, one 9.1) and anywhere from 3-8 Windows 2000 machines.

The Linux servers just sit there. They run firewalls, Samba, Netatalk, Apache, PHP, ColdFusion, mySQl, blah blah. These are the best performers. I don't touch them, they don't screw-up (in general).

Here's some of the problems I see:

Machines often act like crap after going to sleep. Network connections quit out, and I get "Application XYZ has unexpectedly quit" messages frequently.

Machines do fail to see each other and then seem unlikely to be able to regain the connections. W2k and Macs do this, Macs seem a little more flaky in this regard.

In almost all situations, a reboot fixes everything. Sometimes I have to reboot say, all the Macs just to be done with it. When rebooted, everything is cool again.

Hardware can matter. Linksys hubs did not work that well with built-in mac networking on a Pismo 500 and a dual450 and a dual800. So we switched to Netgear switches.

Passwords can get mucked, or need to be reset. I think this was a w2k thing, but it ruined a day as I tried other solutions.

Basically, it is simple. It's a good idea to do a top down in strict sense and avoid any trickery at first.

OSX has good networking. It's documented very poorly though, so that makes it hard deal with sometimes.

FWIW, for the most part, I have solid networking here and linux, w2k and OSX are playing as nice as they ever have.

When that fails, I whip out the 1991 fix - the reboot!

My linux servers are my only computers that have any uptime. I use my OSX and w2k machines pretty hard. They crap out and get confused after a few days, requiring a reboot.

I know that don't jive with a lab set-up.

As far as losing face, just get it fixed, you will be a hero. OSX networking will do you right, eventually.

[Gul Banana]

It's not just connect to server, it's got to be something about your specific setup.. we have a very complex university network involving many of just about every machine under the sun, and every one that's running OS X (some 10.1, some 10.2) sees all the ones it's supposed to (whatever servers, be they mac or not, that are on its local network). We have dozens of different protocols running amok, interbuilding connections of 10/BaseT, 10/Base2, Localtalk, and freakier things. It's a miracle that it all works... but it does. The admins [mostly] know what they're doing, and 99% of the computers (even the Windows machines!) have 99% reliable connectivity to whatever we want to connect to. Complex networking can work. Don't lose hope

[mikerally]

Yeah, when connecting two machines connected directly it's important to use a crossover cable.

BTW if the machines can't ping each other - then it's not a problem with Appletalk or Appleshare - it's a problem with TCP/IP and how your network topology is set up.

All machines should be able to ping each other 100% of the time, if they can't do that - then it's TCP/IP that is incorrectly configured - or the entire network incorrectly configured - don't just think about what information is entered into the network equipment, but think about the actual physical layout of how they are interconnected.

For me to be able to help you with this, you're gonna have to draw a up a diagram of you entire network and how it's configured.

Nobody said this would be easy - networks over different subnets aren't easy to configure.

Usually it's something simple that's overlooked in the fundamental layout of the network - I certainly know that in my home and office networks in which both Internet, Ethernet, and Wireless connections are served out - I have 100% reliablility between the Macs and PCs I have.

[kman42]

I carry a Lombard back and forth to lab. I'm connected to the university network with an ethernet cable and can connec to everything available.

I also have a wavelan card in my Lombard so when I am at home I can connect to the Airport network generated by my G4 which is connected to the internet through a router and a DSL modem. So the G4 has two networking ports: ethernet to the internet via router and DSL, Airport to connect to the Lombard. The G4 has Internet Sharing on and the firewall off. The ethernet port has a static IP of 192.168.1.1 on subnet 255.255.255.0. The router uses DHCP to get its IP from the DSL. The Airport has a static IP of 10.0.2.1 on subnet 255.255.0.0.

The Lombard en(0) is set to DHCP. When I bring it home and wake it from sleep it gets assigned 192.168.2.1 as an IP and can browse the internet, but can't see the G4. Assigning 10.0.2.2 to it doesn't work at all.

I restarted the Lombard and turned off Appletalk on the G4 (its off on the Lombard). Now the Lombard is assigned 10.0.2.2, can browse the internet and see the G4. All is well.

Just thought I would share my experience in case others could benefit. I think the answer was the Lombard restart as switching around the Appletalk toggle on the G4 has no effect now. It must be something about switching on the fly from the en(0) ethernet port at lab to the en(1) wavelan port at home.

kman

[voodoo]

Originally posted by K++:
was it crossover or regular cable? That might matter mowadays, in the days of 9 it didn't.

i dunno. it was just a regular ethernet cable. standard issue. how can i tell?

[kman42]

Originally posted by voodoo:


i dunno. it was just a regular ethernet cable. standard issue. how can i tell?

Modern macs have autodetecting swithable ethernet ports so it doesn't matter what type of cable you use, but older macs did require the use of a crossover cable. If you are mixing a new mac with an old mac it shouldn't matter either. I can't remember which macs started with the new ports, but I know my Quicksilver has an autodetecting port.

Are the wires in your cable color-coded or numbered? Check the middle wires. Cross-over cables will have them switched when comparing the two ends. Otherwise, I guess you could use a voltmeter to see which pins connect on the two ends, but that would require having a voltmeter and I think only we old-school geeks have them anymore.

kman

[kndonlee]

Did you say that of your 10 basestations, all of them are acting as a bridge between the ethernet and wireless network, and on top of that 1 or two or more are acting as dhcp servers ? ouch.. that's why they can't see each other.

one or more DHCP servers whether a basestation DHCP server or another type of DHCP server are assigning IPs thoruhgout the whole network, hence, it's possible that each machine isn't picking up an IP on the same subnet, as an earlier poster had said. One machine picking up an ip from one dhcp server and another machine picking up an IP from another dhcp server would create this whole hassle. the Airport Baseatsion does not give out any routing addresses. Only an Ip address and a subnet mask. Only time the Baestation DHCP server gives out IP, subnet, router, DNS, and the whoel 9 yards, is when it does NAT.

Now if you do have NAT enabled...Lets say there is Basestation A and Basestation B acting as an ethernet bridge, doing DHCP and NAT, and there is Machine C and Machine D receiving ips... If C gets an IP from A and D gets an IP from B via dhcp, obvious C and D will not see each other. Why? Because of the NAT thats going on.

Essentially when C tries to get onto the internet it goes through A and to the internet.. It's a one way path. A machine on the internet will not be able to see through A and see C. IP packets from D will go through the basestation B, to the internet, but will not go through basestation A to see C. When NAT takes place, it is a one way road.

Sorry for the ramble...(i've probably lost you..)

You see back in the days with appletalk, all you needed to do was turn on apple talk and appleshareing, and voila it worked. Anything connected up, made it seems like one huge big happy subnet.. no need for routers or anything. Appletalk was pretty simple. As for the 10.2 days, you've got yourself dealing with IP, and IP can get tricky compared to Appletalk.

Here is the solution:

Make ALL your basestations do ONLY ethernet to Wireless bridging. All your Basestations should pull and IP via DHCP. TURN OFF ALL DHCP AND NAT Services on your Basestations, and any other DHCP servers.

Make the X Serve a central DHCP server, and that X serve should be the ONLY DHCP server on the network at all.

umm.. If you are unsure as how you shoud manually set up the DHCP server on your X Serve, then send me a message: donaldl /at/ southern.edu

Best Wishes,
Donald

[El Pre$idente]

quote:If you give each Mac a predetermined IP adress (no DHCP or any other method) and manually write it in the 'connect to server' adress line:

afp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

THEN it works. It seems unable to find this IP adress by itself. That is frustraiting $%"$#"%$#!'

But even the above doesn't always work. My TiBook 800 could see my iMac but not my Tibook 550. Both of them could see the iMac. This again was random and sometimes a reboot couldn't fix it. The problem was impossible to track down too since all network settings and installations were the same.

Solution, I sold the Ti550.

[yuriwho]

Don, As others have already noted, you probably have a problem with multiple DHCP servers on your network. Make sure there is only one DHCP server on the subnet if all the Airports are set up for bridging--disable 'distribute IP addresses' for all of the Airports. The xserve make logical sense for use as the DHCP server.

Apple has some fairly comprehensive documents called "designing airport networks" available on their knowlegebase. Search for them and give them a read.

The rendevous issue may be helped by entering "local." (without the quotes) as a search domain on each on the macs in the network preferences.

I'd recommend static network addresses on the macs so that you can always find them by ping/ssh etc for remote administration. And enable ssh and appletalk for each machine. Note that you cannot enable appletalk simultaneously on two network interfaces so make sure it is diabled for everything except airport on the iMacs.

good luck

Y

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


Thanks again for all of the responses. Here's the latest:


The Bases are no longer set distribute IP addresses via DHCP. The Xserve (I finally got to play with the Xserve! ) is now the lone DHCP server for the network. While I'm glad to have that bit straightened out, it didn't really have an effect on the network in its current state since all Macs have manually-assigned IP addresses.

Even so, I noticed two things: the Xserve and my iBook (temporarily _hard_wired to the network via Ethernet to the main switch, with AirPort turned off) saw everything on the network, successfully pinged everything, AND gave no -36 errors when trying to connect. I don't think I ever had that much success ... too bad the good times didn't last ...

Back in the Lab, nothing has changed. Missing entries in the Connect to Server dialog, ping drops, -36 errors, and that extry-annoying Print Center lockup when a job is sent to a USB printer attached to another Mac. (Where exactly do I go to wipe print jobs out of Print Center?)


Other notes: Cabling checks out. Larger-packet ping tests didn't reveal any new information (packet loss is either 0% or 100% ... sometimes I get "host is down" messages). Network topology: central switch with seven cables --five to AirPort stations (arranged essentially in a straight line, except for one that's off to one side), one to the Xserve, and the uplink from the Internet router; the iMac lab is situated immediately around one station, but is also (just barely) in range of a second station; other stations have one or two satellite Macs. I haven't done a connection test with an 8.6 Mac yet (they're isolated in a separate lab, unconnected to the school network); likewise, no Windows boxes are on our network yet.


Any more suggestions?


Thanks,

DayLateDon

[yuriwho]

Two other suggestions...

Make sure none of the macs have internet sharing enabled in the sharing preference pane....those are DHCP servers too.

Try enabling DHCP to pull ip addresses on all of the macs in the lab to see if you are setting something up wrong in the static configurations.

Y

[DayLateDon]

Hello ...


Yesterday --after making NO changes to the network (AirPort Stations grab IPs from Xserve DHCP server, iMacs have static IPs)-- I was ecstatic to find myself able to print remotely from every iMac in the lab to the USB printers attached to two specific iMacs. (It took a REALLY long time for the printer-selecting pop-up menu to switch from one to another. Is this normal?) Well, almost. I'd forgotten on particular combination, and when I went to try that, the print job went apparently spiralling out into space only to be printed about a half-hour later. So much for being ecstatic.

Then I went back to the ping tests. As before, mixed results all around. Some pings, some not.

This morning, I shifted all the iMacs to DHCP, as per yuriwho's suggestion. The good news: Every iMac appeared in every "Connect to Server" dialog! The odd news: The Xserve didn't appear in the dialogs (it had when the iMacs had static IPs). The BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD news: -36 errors about a third of the time I tried to connect. Likewise, pings were hit or miss.




Anyone want my job? (Thirteen-figure* salary!)


DayLateDon


*In Base 2.