Computers on network aren't 'seeing' each other...

BallsOfSteel · 06-26-2008, 09:32 PM

I have a home computer running Ubuntu 8.04 and I have a laptop running Fedora 9. The laptop is connected wirelessly. When I go to Places<Network<Windows Network nothing shows up. The subnet mask and the default route are the same on both computers. So, I'm not exactly sure why either one can't see the other.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Brandon

BallsOfSteel · 06-26-2008, 11:29 PM

On my laptop, when I go to System<Preferences<Internet and Network<Personal File Sharing and I enable it, it shows up on my home computer. It says "Brandon's public files on localhost.localdomain" under Network on my home computer. When I attempt to go into it on my home computer, I get the following message "Unable to mount location 'http eror: cannot connect to destination'."

Not sure what this means... hope somebody can help.

Thanks,

Brandon

BallsOfSteel · 06-27-2008, 12:06 AM

Now, I've tried going the Samba route. Samba is install on both the home computer and the laptop. I followed the how-to here for my home computer: http://www.funnestra.org/ubuntu/hardy/#samba

It appears to have successfully shared on my home computer as it is putting the little arrows logo on the folder. Then, I go to my laptop fire up Nautilus, hit ctrl+l and type in

Code:

smb://elwood-desktop

elwood-desktop is the hostname of my home computer. After about 5 seconds it says there are 0 items and nothing shows up.

This is really beginning to get frustrating. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong or not doing. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

BallsOfSteel · 06-27-2008, 12:54 AM

I still cannot get Samba to work, but I do appear to have gotten ssh to work. That will do for now. If anyone has any idea as to why Samba won't work, I'd appreciate your input.

Thanks,

Brandon

BallsOfSteel · 06-27-2008, 05:20 PM

Well, now I feel thoroughly retarded, but smarter nonetheless. The tutorial that I was reading was saying to use 'hostname' and to substitute whatever the name was of your computer, but that didn't work. I swapped out the host name for the IP address and that worked like a charm.

Brandon

BallsOfSteel · 07-01-2008, 10:59 PM

Does anyone happen to know why the computers still can't see each other? Does a domain name need to be set for both? I'm not quite sure why they aren't seeing each other. I do have other avenues of seeing my desktop, but I'm curious for when I'm connected to someone else's network... what would I do then?

Thanks,

Brandon

inspiron_Droid · 07-01-2008, 11:50 PM

Fire uo an terminal and issue thi command pipe sudo cat workgroup = work >> /etc/samba/smb.conf group name (make hue you psell you workgroup name the same way on all server and clients)(replace work group name with your own unique work group name). Also mke sure to make the necessary registry audits on the windows machines (more so with Vista) so it can see, read and write to and from the Samba share. If you have any Apple computers on your net wor got to apple menu> system preferences >> sharing and setup samba on each mac. as for setting the work group name ou go Applemenu System preferences > network >> advanced > wins tab and imputthe same workgroup name as you didon your windows and *nix clients.

BallsOfSteel · 07-03-2008, 02:57 PM

I don't have any Windows machines. It's ALL Linux

. Which makes it all the more confusing as to why they're not 'seeing' each other.

Thanks,

Brandon

tredegar · 07-03-2008, 05:02 PM

Quote:

When I go to Places<Network<Windows Network nothing shows up

That's because you are running linux. Good

You do not need nasty "samba" for linux. Linux "just works", especially with other linux computers. "Samba" is for windows computers, linux just does this stuff naturally and easily, and it doesn't need samba at all. Samba complicates things unnecessarily if you are on a linux network.

Quote:

I swapped out the host name for the IP address and that worked like a charm.

OK. This is easy to fix:

Linux needs to know the mapping between IP addresses on your LAN, and local hostnames.

On the big bad web, this is handled by your ISP's DNS servers (eg google.com is (currently) at 64.233.167.99)

On your PCs, for your LOCAL network, the mapping is defined in the file /etc/hosts

Mine looks like this:

Code:

# You NEED this entry, or linux will not work
127.0.0.1      localhost

# Here are my LAN PCs

# LAN IP NUM   FQDN                    Short name

10.0.0.2       router.home.net         router
10.0.0.3       myeee.home.net          myeee
10.0.0.6       p3.home.net             p3
10.0.0.4       p4.home.net             p4
10.0.0.8       vaio.home.net           vaio
10.0.0.20      hpg.home.net            hpg
10.0.0.21      ph-vaio.home.net        ph-vaio
10.0.0.30      bear.home.net           bear
10.0.0.50      51hst.home.net          51hst
10.0.0.132     ipod.home.net           ipod

How do you find out what your hostname is?
hostname in a terminal
How do you find out what any PC's LAN IP is?
ifconfig in a terminal at that PC

Modify your /etc/hosts file appropriately. If you are on a 192.168.x.y network, then substitute those IP addresses instead of the 10.0.0.x addresses I use. The FQDN really doesn't really matter, you can use .home.net or .foo.bar or whatever. Just make sure you are consistent and enter the correct LAN IP addresses. Static IP addressing makes this all simpler than dynamic addresses allocated by some local (probably in your router / modem) DHCP server, because these may change over time.

The /etc/hostname files need to be the same on all PCs on your LAN.

Then you can refer to any PC by their name eg.

ssh myusername@p3

Or, put into konqueror

fish://myusername@p4 to see a listing of your files there, ready for drag & drop.

Awesome functionality! (Even better when you have enabled passwordless ssh logins - time for a bit of reading or another thread)

(You'll need to install ssh-server for fish to work, but it is excellent!)

Let us know how you get on

BallsOfSteel · 07-06-2008, 02:08 AM

Thanks, tred. Seems simple enough. Now, I just need to get my computer back up and running. Bit the dust this weekend.

Hypothetically, let's say I connect to a Windows network with my laptop. How would I get my laptop to see the other computers? Should it just work or will it need some configuring like above?

Thanks

Trauma · 07-06-2008, 02:09 AM

tredegar ... you saved my life and a divorce settlement with this post.

I have two computers & a router; first puter is dual boot WindowZzz XP and Fedora 9; 2nd puter is Fedora 9 media PC.

I have been stuffing around with SAMBA and my router; searching networking sites etc for 3 weeks. I feel like an idiot for not figuring this stuff out earlier, but this post of yours is brilliant.

Been trying to access a 'WindowZzz puter' dual booting Fedora 9. Do you think I can work out SAMBA.. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Hey ... just boot into Fedora, access the mounted NTFS folders and download my terrabyte of media files to my media PC that way. I thought it would be easy. I was wrong. Simple is a better explanation; and now I am up and running thanks to this thread and your post.

Well, working from you Hosts conf and your mini-howto; I am now up and running.

I really appreciate your explanation; patience and knowledge in this article. Thankyou very much.

Have fun.

tredegar · 07-06-2008, 04:23 AM

@BallsOfSteel,

Quote:

let's say I connect to a Windows network with my laptop. How would I get my laptop to see the other computers? Should it just work or will it need some configuring

I don't know, I don't do windows networking. I only posted in this thread because you said

Quote:

I don't have any Windows machines. It's ALL Linux

If you want to connect to a windows computer, you will need samba, and yes, of course it will need configuring: If I were you I'd do a search for "Samba HOWTO" and then follow a link like this one:

http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/w...nux,_and_Samba

@Trauma,
Glad you found something useful. Thanks for the follow-up.

BallsOfSteel · 07-06-2008, 03:36 PM

Well, since I figured out Samba on my own with Linux... Windows won't be much of a problem. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

inspiron_Droid · 07-29-2008, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BallsOfSteel

Well, since I figured out Samba on my own with Linux... Windows won't be much of a problem. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I have the Dell Dimension 4600c mentioned in my set up as a Freenas machine, which houses the Itunes library for My windows Identity and acts as a restore poiunt for my Mac and MS windows god forbid I should have to flas and restore either Drive, the [I]rony is that I am typing this while booted into Ubuntu Hardy Hereon on the same machine in which I have windows DuleBooted. for assistance for assistance