Home Networking...

[kandrathe]

I just upgraded my home network due to the ever increasing need for bandwidth. A few weeks ago, I canceled everything except for the basic cable package (minimal channels), and upgraded the bandwidth to 50Mbps -- keeping it at about 45$ / month. I catch up on "popular" shows when they get to Hulu, or Netflix, or somewhere else on the Internet.

I'm probably not the only one who's migrating from broadcast media to streaming media. My two kids now both have iPhone's and have iPads for school, and we have 3 gaming/homework machines, with mine also doubling for "other administrative duties". We also picked up an AppleTv for our master suite media cluster.

I guess like many homes, mine is a pretty long rectangle, with the cable access point on one end, nearer to the "Family Room" where most of the 70's era television watching used to occur. That happens still in our house, when friends come over for the football game, or when we have family movie night and popcorn. Increasingly, though each of us in the family watch our own things on our own devices, and mostly on wireless devices.

From the cable modem, I connect right there in the family room to a gigabit capable 4 port firewall, router, and wireless device that covers that end of the house. It is close to the family room media center, which has the big TV, DVD player, old seldom used VCR, plus 3 different Ethernet connected game consoles. We've set up that room so that it is easy to move things out of the way to also go Kinect sports type games -- which in Minnesota is a big hit for active boys in January. 4 ports on the router weren't enough so I added an 8 port gigabit switch in that same cabinet. With the desktop computers, and the game consoles, most of the switch is now used.

I had bought one of those cheaper wireless repeaters you plug in a wall outlet to extend the range to the other end of the house to the bedrooms. It was poor at best (intermittent, flaky and < 4Mbs). Last week I ran a 75 foot cat 6 cable from one end of the house to our master suite, originally I had used it only as a direct connection for the AppleTV which sucks bandwidth. But, yesterday installed a TL-WA901ND WAP on that line, and let the AppleTV go wireless (about a foot away from the WAP) It was only $38, and the difference is amazing. Everything just works better now.

[Taem]

Congratulations on your change. If you have your computer networked into your television set and its close enough to see your t.v., you will really enjoy sharing YouTube videos with the family and showing them pictures you're editing in Photoshop on the big-screen. I completely stopped cable many years ago and have not regretted it since.

I noticed, however what I consider a disappointing trend taking over network websites, in that most major networks have altered the way they stream online videos now so you have to have a cable subscription to watch them online. Cute, but I don't subscribe for a cable subscription because I choose not to support the "watch what WE want when WE want you to" dichotomy. I also don't feel this is fair to users who choose not to have a cable subscription and wouldn't mind so much watching their online ads to see my show when I want - the cable company gets paid for every commercial you watch you know. So in reality, major networks are double dipping by charging cable companies to carry their service which gets passed on to you the consumer, then also charging for advertisers for their commercials. Anyway, as I see it, I'd be paying an average of $60-$120 per month for a company that tells me what to do and when to do it... that's ludicrous customer service, and the major networks need to learn to evolve instead of relying so heavily on their current commercial to time-slot based system because more and more people like you and I will eventually leave these archaic systems in the stone age. Not even a DVR could keep me attached to cable... again, why in hell would I pay to watch commercials? What exactly am I paying for with a cable subscription? The right to watch a network? I pay $7.99 a month with Netflix and can watch what I want when I want with no commercials... what has your local cable company done? Upped their prices due to network greed (networks raised their prices to cable companies to carry them), offered a digital tier for more money so if you want DVR and HDTV, you have to pay extra... free on netflix by the way, then they riddle it with commercials where they make even more money. Hilarious that anyone in this day and age is still so naive to pay for a cable television subscription when, let’s be frank here, you can download anything you want to see in minutes, if you can't just find it outright streaming on various websites in HDMI quality! If you can't figure out how to do that, then you really deserve to pay for your $120-dollar a month cable subscription that tells you what to watch, when to watch it, charges you a premium for quality service (HDTV) making you believe it’s a luxury instead of a feature, then makes you suffer through commercials in which they make more money off you.

I should mention that I currently pay for Hulu Plus, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, a combined total of what I'd pay for the lowest cable setting with absolute shitty broadcast resolution, but I get no commercials, don't have to set my goddamn DVR because I can just pick and choose what I want to watch, and get to watch my shows in HDTV.

TL;DR: Screw major networks! They need to get with the times.

[LavCat]

I just added a second network and went through many runs of hell to get it working.

It seems the problem (one of the problems) lies with Windows 7 and its firewall. A network without a default gateway is forced to be what Microsoft calls a public network. Microsoft's published workaround is OK only until the next reboot. Not much of a solution.

I finally had to disable Windows firewall for public networks.


Also I have on order a new cable modem. Mine does not support DOCSIS 3.0. Comcast with their clever marketing discontinued my Internet service and moved me to a more expensive tier. The following day I read Comcast is building a new, even more awesome building.

I could call and complain, but knowing Comcast they would make me long for the days of dial up, which is what I had when I started WoW.

Of course if a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, which they say I need, does not result in an improvement I shall call and complain. Another project is to replace my router with a higher bandwidth one.

[kandrathe]

Congratulations on your change. If you have your computer networked into your television set and its close enough to see your t.v., you will really enjoy sharing YouTube videos with the family and showing them pictures you're editing in Photoshop on the big-screen. I completely stopped cable many years ago and have not regretted it since.
...
TL;DR: Screw major networks! They need to get with the times.

AppleTV has Youtube, and a bunch of stuff that are free out of the box. but yes there are some of those "Showtime Anywhere" type channels that check to see if I'm a Showtime subscriber through my cable system. I too refuse to prostrate myself before the cable Gods begging for services. Cast them down, cast them all into the fiery hells of the abyss!

I just added a second network and went through many runs of hell to get it working.

It seems the problem (one of the problems) lies with Windows 7 and its firewall. A network without a default gateway is forced to be what Microsoft calls a public network. Microsoft's published workaround is OK only until the next reboot. Not much of a solution.

I finally had to disable Windows firewall for public networks.

I guess I'm perhaps old school when it comes to my home network. I formerly ran a network security consulting services practice, where I had teams of white hat hackers helping businesses set up and secure their internal networks. We used to practice on each other for fun and education... There was nothing quite as gratifying (for us) than hacking into our friends home network, sniffing around and printing stuff out on their printer as evidence of our success.

I follow the Green-Yellow-Red firewall design for networks. With the computers software firewall acting as the barrier to the yellow zone. The bulk of my internal networking equipment is in the yellow zone (DMZ), protected from the red zone by an actual physical firewall router, which also serves DHCP (192.168.1.0 network). For some software, I need to open up ports, but I can specify in pretty fine detail who can see them. I'm pretty invisible in the cloud, but if you knew where to look, and could spoof someone like Blizzard you might be able to do something if you were really well trained in hacking.

Whenever I change anything in my configuration at home, I also then see what is visible, and if I can attack my house from my work.

My son's solution (since he's not sure what he's doing ) on software that doesn't work is to disable firewalls, which of course, sends dad into fits of conniptions. It's like you should know that if your Dad is a mechanic, you don't red-line his car, at least not when he's in the passenger seat.

[LavCat]

If you know how to configure a Windows 7 TCP/IP network with no default gateway that is not considered by Windows 7 to be a "public network", please tell.

Although I am not worried about having to turn off the Windows firewall in this case. It's just that it's stupid I can't have Windows believe me that the network is a "work network".

[Taem]

Congratulations on your change. If you have your computer networked into your television set and its close enough to see your t.v., you will really enjoy sharing YouTube videos with the family and showing them pictures you're editing in Photoshop on the big-screen. I completely stopped cable many years ago and have not regretted it since.
...
TL;DR: Screw major networks! They need to get with the times.

AppleTV has Youtube, and a bunch of stuff that are free out of the box. but yes there are some of those "Showtime Anywhere" type channels that check to see if I'm a Showtime subscriber through my cable system. I too refuse to prostrate myself before the cable Gods begging for services. Cast them down, cast them all into the fiery hells of the abyss!

Lol, well, I suppose I was being a bit over-zealous in my approach to my OT-rant. I haven't been getting too much sleep lately and I've been letting that alter my attitude to the point where I feel a constant elevated level of agitation lately.

In regards to the off-shoot topic I've created, I'd like to offer a comment: if you look at the cable charge model realistically, you'll realize that when 4k becomes mainstream, there will be a new tier you can purchase to view it, and when that comes out digital tiers will drop in price and standard cable will drop in price and cable companies will bitch and moan how they can't support that much bandwidth so have to lay new cable and will definitely be passing that cost along to their customers, which was their argument for the digital cable/hdtv, although those prices have never dropped. So suddenly, we have a 4k tier at $10 more a month than the previous digital tier, while the digital tier drops $10 a month, and you're thinking to yourself, "what a deal", when in reality you should be saying to yourself, "I think as a paying consumer of this service, I believe the 'standard' for network television should be 4k, not analog." I suppose it's business as usual for some, but I'd rather speak with my wallet and not support the business model. I hate how most countries now have faster internet for cheaper than we do here in America because in those countries, when a new standard comes out, they raise the bar or regulate it. I hate how cable companies can raise your speed up to 160gbps for only $20 per home, but they don't because, it's all about the money, money, money. America's model of letting big corporations do what they want really stifles innovation, such as the impending end of Net Neutrality that we all know is inevitable within the next couple years. By shrugging your shoulders, you are basically saying that you're okay with the model America has adapted. I guess I'm just not okay with that. Here is an example of what I'm referring: article

Comcast, like other pay-TV operators, is set on preserving the television ecosystem in its present form for as long as possible, whereas it is in the interest of consumers to see viable, cheaper alternatives take off.

I just see a bigger problem with no real solution that can only get worse as these mega corporations get bigger and find ways to milk every last cent. I won't pay extra for a form of media that is accepted as the standard across all platforms except cable. When will be the tipping point for you? How about when you're trying to load the Lurker Lounge but it's server didn't pay "x" dollars to Comcast so it loads like a 56k modem? The way the current model of business is headed in this country, it really is inevitable that situations like this will happen and we will all be effected by it!



Backing up a little, in regards to watching shows on network T.V., I was talking specifically about watching shows on networks - such as "Once Upon a Time" on ABC or "The Carbinaro Effect" on TruTV - where when I try and play the video, I'm asked for my "cable pin" to view it. I've seen it pop up on most network stations except for CBS, but like I said, they get money for every commercial they put me through, and believe me, the networks pack in plenty of commercials on their internet streams, so I hardly consider it fair for them to also require me to have a cable subscription.

[kandrathe]

If you know how to configure a Windows 7 TCP/IP network with no default gateway that is not considered by Windows 7 to be a "public network", please tell.

Although I am not worried about having to turn off the Windows firewall in this case. It's just that it's stupid I can't have Windows believe me that the network is a "work network".

In my case, the firewall/router is the gateway, at 192.168.1.1 and it operates as the DHCP server. The default Class C network for personal use is 192.168.1.0 (1-254) with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. It also passes along the DNS addresses from my cable provider.

So, I think you do need a default gateway (think router)... It is the default route your client machine will use to send it's information to the network. Every IP network subnet has a default gateway (router) passing traffic within, and out of the sub-network.

In Windows speak, a work Network must have a domain (windows domain or, in other words an Active Directory server). I default to putting my machines in workgroup WORKGROUP for utility. The difference is that in a DOMAIN, the clients need to seek authentication for accessing things from the Active Directory. In setting up things at home, I ignore Microsoft networking and use TCP/IP for everything.

I find Windows 8's client security even more borked. They wanted to link peoples home PC accounts to hotmail/XBOX authentication -- and that part sort of works. But now, as the local machines administrator, I can delete a client account, but I can't change their password or profile.

[LavCat]

Windows 7 offers four network locations: home, work, public, and domain.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...=windows-7


My network in question that is stuck being public is a workgroup, but I think you are confusing work network with workgroup. When I had a real company I set up and administered a domain, so I am familiar with such things though not an expert.

Actually switching from a workgroup to a domain might be a solution to my problem that I hadn't thought of. Hmm.

Anyhow this network has no router and it has no switch. It has a three foot cat6 cable. Name resolution is via lmhosts, so there is no need at all for DNS. I don't want traffic routed out of the subnet. If I did, I know how to do so.

[kandrathe]

Windows 7 offers four network locations: home, work, public, and domain.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windo...=windows-7


My network in question that is stuck being public is a workgroup, but I think you are confusing work network with workgroup. When I had a real company I set up and administered a domain, so I am familiar with such things though not an expert.

Actually switching from a workgroup to a domain might be a solution to my problem that I hadn't thought of. Hmm.

Anyhow this network has no router and it has no switch. It has a three foot cat6 cable. Name resolution is via lmhosts, so there is no need at all for DNS. I don't want traffic routed out of the subnet. If I did, I know how to do so.

You might also make the PC act as the router, and host itself, and the other thing on the end of the Cat6 cable.

[LavCat]

You might also make the PC act as the router, and host itself, and the other thing on the end of the Cat6 cable.

I could, and I would, except I don't want a router (that is, a gateway). Obviously the PC's have routing tables for routing packets between themselves, so in that sense they are routers.

[kandrathe]

You might also make the PC act as the router, and host itself, and the other thing on the end of the Cat6 cable.

I could, and I would, except I don't want a router (that is, a gateway). Obviously the PC's have routing tables for routing packets between themselves, so in that sense they are routers.

So like... netsh -c interface ipv4 add neighbors “Local Area Connection” “192.168.10.10” “00-1d-71-83-6c-00″ store=persistent

Where 192.168.10.10 is the neighbor IP address, and 00-1d-71-83-6c-00 is the MAC address.

Adds a permanent ARP entry, so theoretically you can talk peer-to-peer with the device.

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/netw..._netsh.htm

[LavCat]

Thanks. I was not aware of the netsh command. Looks interesting. Lot of stuff there. I notice netsh is not supported in NT 4 however.

And unfortunately still not a fix for the original Windows 7 problem as far as I can tell.

[kandrathe]

I notice netsh is not supported in NT 4 however.

You STILL have NT4???

[LavCat]

You STILL have NT4???

One end of the cable is Windows 7 professional, the other end is NT4 server.

[kandrathe]

You STILL have NT4???

One end of the cable is Windows 7 professional, the other end is NT4 server.

I assume you want access to the NT servers storage devices? I would use iSCSI, but first you need to be able to have them be able to ping each other. Why do you not want a cheap 4-port $22 firewall/router? It would be the easiest way to make a small network, and no need to open it to the Internet is you want 100% security.

[LavCat]

You STILL have NT4???

One end of the cable is Windows 7 professional, the other end is NT4 server.

I assume you want access to the NT servers storage devices? I would use iSCSI, but first you need to be able to have them be able to ping each other. Why do you not want a cheap 4-port $22 firewall/router? It would be the easiest way to make a small network, and no need to open it to the Internet is you want 100% security.

Umm, that was the problem: with the Windows 7 firewall on, they could not ping each other. (Actually the client could ping the server but the server could not ping the client.) Not to mention NT does not support iSCSI.

Where did I say anything about Internet on this network? A router would do nothing but add latency. Surely you are not saying a cheap router is an easier solution than a short bundle of a few good wires?

[kandrathe]

You STILL have NT4???

One end of the cable is Windows 7 professional, the other end is NT4 server.

I assume you want access to the NT servers storage devices? I would use iSCSI, but first you need to be able to have them be able to ping each other. Why do you not want a cheap 4-port $22 firewall/router? It would be the easiest way to make a small network, and no need to open it to the Internet is you want 100% security.

Umm, that was the problem: with the Windows 7 firewall on, they could not ping each other. (Actually the client could ping the server but the server could not ping the client.) Not to mention NT does not support iSCSI.

Where did I say anything about Internet on this network? A router would do nothing but add latency. Surely you are not saying a cheap router is an easier solution than a short bundle of a few good wires?

It is essentially a client server architecture. The internet seems to be Host to Host because routers act as packet servers. In your two host scheme, you will need a packet server. One of the two devices needs to act as the server (router), probably by enabling routing on the NT box (which seems to be the server) ala something like,

Route Add 192.168.1.0 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 metric 2

You may get less latency with software routing, but we're talking in the ~1 ms on a 3 foot cable.

There are iSCSI drivers for storage devices in the NT era... It depends on your hard drive, or other storage devices to get the iSCSI drivers for it. And... gigabit Ethernet cards would give better performance.

[LavCat]

You STILL have NT4???

One end of the cable is Windows 7 professional, the other end is NT4 server.

I assume you want access to the NT servers storage devices? I would use iSCSI, but first you need to be able to have them be able to ping each other. Why do you not want a cheap 4-port $22 firewall/router? It would be the easiest way to make a small network, and no need to open it to the Internet is you want 100% security.

Umm, that was the problem: with the Windows 7 firewall on, they could not ping each other. (Actually the client could ping the server but the server could not ping the client.) Not to mention NT does not support iSCSI.

Where did I say anything about Internet on this network? A router would do nothing but add latency. Surely you are not saying a cheap router is an easier solution than a short bundle of a few good wires?

It is essentially a client server architecture. The internet seems to be Host to Host because routers act as packet servers. In your two host scheme, you will need a packet server. One of the two devices needs to act as the server (router), probably by enabling routing on the NT box (which seems to be the server) ala something like,

Route Add 192.168.1.0 mask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1 metric 2

You may get less latency with software routing, but we're talking in the ~1 ms on a 3 foot cable.

There are iSCSI drivers for storage devices in the NT era... It depends on your hard drive, or other storage devices to get the iSCSI drivers for it. And... gigabit Ethernet cards would give better performance.

I'd be interested in iSCSI if I could do it. So far I don't see how with the NT server. There seem to exist third party drivers for NT to be an iSCSI initiator but no way (that I have found) to make NT server be an iSCSI target, which is what I would need. I am still looking. However, although I would prefer the functionality of iSCSI, simple file sharing works for me at the moment.

A router is a device that forwards packets between subnets. A router would have no function in this network, in which both nodes of the network are on the same subnet. If by "router" you mean a switch, there is no reason to use a switch when a simple cable is all that's necessary.

[kandrathe]

A router is a device that forwards packets between subnets. A router would have no function in this network, in which both nodes of the network are on the same subnet. If by "router" you mean a switch, there is no reason to use a switch when a simple cable is all that's necessary.

If you don't have a switch/router then you need to make sure the ethernet cable is configured as a crossover.

[LavCat]

A router is a device that forwards packets between subnets. A router would have no function in this network, in which both nodes of the network are on the same subnet. If by "router" you mean a switch, there is no reason to use a switch when a simple cable is all that's necessary.

If you don't have a switch/router then you need to make sure the ethernet cable is configured as a crossover.

No you don't.