Wired and Wireless File Sharing

[vonschlieffen]

What would be the easiest way to go about file sharing through both a wireless and a wired connection? Wirelessly, file sharing works fine. When I turn off the wireless card and use ethernet, Internet works fine, but file sharing does not. I think it's because the Network Setup Wizard asks you to select your internet connection, and you can only choose one.

Wireless file sharing is fine for most things, but when I'm transfering large amounts of data (backing up a computer before a format, for example) the speed limitations of 802.11b show through, and it would be nice to be able to use the faster speeds of a wired connection when preforming such tasks.


EDIT: Oops, I meant to post this in the Networking section, but was browsing security at the time. Could someone please move it?

 

[ming]

I use both like you mentioned (wired + wireless).

The problem you're having is the network setings. Yes, you'll need to run network setup wizard to configure which device can used as a connection between the two machines. The final result you should see is a network bridge for the two devices. The bridge will hold all the IP settings and stuff which will be shared between the two devices.

However, you may want to get rid of the bridge so that each device gets its own internal IP. i.e. wireless will have an ip of 192.x.x.1 and the ethernet on the same machine will have 192.x.x.2.

I usually use wireless on my laptop, but decided to plug in the ethernet cable for faster transfer of files between it and my home pc. What I found interesting is that the laptop uploads through the ethernet while downloading through wireless.
I tried to add a Firewire cable to the laptop and pc too, but it kinda mucked things up.
I would prefer Firewire for data transfer since its 400mbps transfer rate is just too cool.

PM me if you're still having probs after running the wizard.

 

[ming]

One other thing I forgot to mention is that I'm using a DSL modem/router to connect all my machines to the internet and to each other.
Not sure if you're using a gateway for your internet or just internet sharing on the main machine.

 

[Bootsy]

check to see if your internet connecion firewal is installed on the wireless connnection as well =]

 

[vonschlieffen]

I don't have a software firewall enabled on any of my connections. Just to be clear before I run the wizard, what options should I select? I too have DSL. The modem is connected to the router, which has an ethernet connection to the desktop.

The bizzare thing is that in order for my laptop to have a connection to the internet, I have to select that "this computer connects directly to the internet" option. It was this way before I ever had wireless too. If I select that its connecting through a gateway (I assume that would be a router) it does create a network bridge, but then I have no internet access or file sharing. I don't totally remember, but I think one of the problems was that I wouldn't get an IP from the router (a 192.168....) but only an "automatically assigned private IP" My desktop, on the other hand, only works if I select that it DOES connect through a gateway. Selecting the directly-connected option ends with a message saying that the wizard encountered an error.

 

[ming]

I don't have a software firewall enabled on any of my connections. Just to be clear before I run the wizard, what options should I select? I too have DSL. The modem is connected to the router, which has an ethernet connection to the desktop.

The bizzare thing is that in order for my laptop to have a connection to the internet, I have to select that "this computer connects directly to the internet" option. It was this way before I ever had wireless too. If I select that its connecting through a gateway (I assume that would be a router) it does create a network bridge, but then I have no internet access or file sharing. I don't totally remember, but I think one of the problems was that I wouldn't get an IP from the router (a 192.168....) but only an "automatically assigned private IP" My desktop, on the other hand, only works if I select that it DOES connect through a gateway. Selecting the directly-connected option ends with a message saying that the wizard encountered an error.

You shouldn't need to select direct connection for the laptop since it's not actually directly connecting to it in the first place.
You must select connect to internet through gateway on both machines.

Did you run the wizard while connecting the machine with both wireless and wired cable?
What I do is on my laptop, run wizard (with ethernet unplugged) - connect through gateway.

What you could try and do (if it still creates a bridge) is to delete the bridge afterwards, and reboot your machine. The reboot should make your machine reconfigure the ip so that it gets one from the DCHP instead of creating one internally.

 

[vonschlieffen]

How long should the wizard take to complete? Looking at Network Connectioins, the bridge has been created, and it seems to be accessing the internet and shared folders through the ethernet connection rather than the wireless, but the wizard is still running, and has been for a long time. It's been going for like 10 min

Whenever I have run it before, it only takes a few seconds to a min.

 

[ming]

Shouldn't take more than 1 or 2 mins to complete the whole process.

 

[vonschlieffen]

So should I just end the task, because it's still running. There isn't any activity over either connection either, except when I access a shared resource or the internet

 

[ming]

might as well terminate it and try again after reboot.

 

[silis]

what's your physical and logical network setup look like?

 

[vonschlieffen]

what's your physical and logical network setup look like?

I'm not sure what you're asking, I'm not new to computers, but networking is a new frontier for me.

might as well terminate it and try again after reboot.

I tried rebooting and running the wizard again, but the results were the same, with the creation of the bridge, and the maintaining of internet/file sharing. I again ended the task, but in doing so lost wireless internet/file sharing (wired was functional). I rebooted in an attempt to get the wireless working (I couldn't get an IP) but was unsuccessful. I had created a restore point before attempting any of this, so getting back to a workable configuration wasn't difficult, but I still don't know how to get wired/wireless working

 

[ming]

Did you run the wizard while the ethernet cable was disconnected though?
Also, did you 'delete' the bridge as I have suggested earlier?

I used this method which resulted in my machine having two separate IPs (after reboot) - one for wifi, and one for ethernet cable.

 

[vonschlieffen]

Did you run the wizard while the ethernet cable was disconnected though?
Also, did you 'delete' the bridge as I have suggested earlier?

I used this method which resulted in my machine having two separate IPs (after reboot) - one for wifi, and one for ethernet cable.

The ethernet was connected and the wireless was turned on when I ran the wizard. I thought that was what I was supposed to do? I did not delete the bridge (forgot about that suggestion)

So should I just run the wizard, with both connections enabled, let it go until it seems to be just sitting there (no hard drive activity), end the task, then delete the bridge, and then reboot?

 

[ming]

No, it shouldn't stop half way. I don't know why it's doing that on your machine.

Try this... run wizard with just the wireless enabled. when it asks you should it ignore disconnected devices, select 'ignore' and continue with the setup. Shouldn't take more than 2 mins at most.

 

[vonschlieffen]

No, it shouldn't stop half way. I don't know why it's doing that on your machine.

Try this... run wizard with just the wireless enabled. when it asks you should it ignore disconnected devices, select 'ignore' and continue with the setup. Shouldn't take more than 2 mins at most.

It works fine when it's just the wireless or when its just the ethernet, it's when have both enabled that it just goes and goes... I always have just run it as "wireless only" (except when I only had a wired router, of course)

After I run it that way (wireless only) should I reboot and run it as ethernet only?

 

[ming]

Yes, set up with wireless only, select ignore disconnected devices during the process. Once it finishes, it may ask you to reboot. If not, check the View Connections in Explorer and delete the bridge if there is one created. Then reboot (again).

Check your PM btw.

 

[vonschlieffen]

After a successful session with Ming over MSN Messenger, everything is working perfectly.

Ming walked me through the network wizard, selecting the options that worked for him. I didn't connect the ethernet cable while running the wizard, and selected that I wanted to select what connections I wanted to bridge. I unchecked the "1394 Connection" (still have to google that and find out what it is) and that left just the LAN and Wireless connection. The wizard again would not complete, so I ended the task and rebooted (reboot was needed, since not "all" of the wizard actually closed and changing anything else with the network settings was impossible with it open) After the reboot, I deleted the bridge. Afterwards, I was left with one IP for the LAN connection and one IP for the wireless. This allowed file sharing through either the wired or wireless connections.

Then Ming suggested that I make sure that file sharing worked the other way around (desktop to laptop) It didn't. I realized that I was running McAfee Firewall on my desktop (contrary to my earlier post, I thought I had uninstalled it, but it seems that it was still on my desktop) Even though it was set to trust all LAN traffic regardless of IP, I set it to specifically allow traffic from the IP range of my network. That did the trick and everything worked.

I can't thank Ming enough, who was very patient and helpful. I couldn't have done it without him.

 

[ming]

1394 (or IEEE1394) is another name for Firewire (or i.Link on Sony products).
It's an alternative to USB and it much faster at 400mbps (version 1). However, I've tried linking two machines together with this cable but it didn't seem to be stable enough to network with although file transfers of 1GB finishes much quick than using the normal ethernet cables.

 

[vonschlieffen]

1394 (or IEEE1394) is another name for Firewire (or i.Link on Sony products).
It's an alternative to USB and it much faster at 400mbps (version 1). However, I've tried linking two machines together with this cable but it didn't seem to be stable enough to network with although file transfers of 1GB finishes much quick than using the normal ethernet cables.

Oh, I see. I never thought of the firewire ports as networking devices, but I suppose they could be used that way.