UPnP Issue

[maleitch]

Trying "Winsock Tester" to simplify the tests a bit. It just allows you to listen and connect giving IP addresses and ports - it shows eactly what the problem is - but not how to fix it.

If I start XP listening on port 51234 then I can connect to it using Winsock from 7. In fact if I have XP listening on port 51234 and have no MT running at all on XP, and then I start MT on 7 I can try connecting to server on port 51234 (direct connect) and the winsock tester on XP sees the connection coming in from 7. So basically XP's 'server' is working.

If I start winsock listening on port 51234 on win7 then try connecting to it using winsock on XP, it never sees the connection. Basically win7's 'server' is being blocked by something. win7 firewall is off completly. Something else on my win7 box is blocking it.

To complete the set I tried 'listening' on ports 21, 23, 25, 80, 51234 and 54321. There seemed to be come phantom connections to ports 21 and 25
but none of the others worked at all. So all I need to do is figure out what is blocking all my ports. Perhaps it's McAfee. I wonder if I can find out...

As I've said before, when win7 is on my work network then this connection works fine. It's just at home that it's blocking.

Ok, well that pretty much narrows it down. So we are fighting your IT admin.

The non-domain account that you log in locally with, does it have local admin rights? I assume it does not.

[Blakey]

That your Win7 PC can't ping your XP box is an issue. Has nothing to do with the firewall on XP. It's some configuration issue on your Win7 PC.

It also can't see your router (or XP box) with network discovery which implies that network discovery is still disabled. I'm assuming nothing about this has changed? If you open up your network browser it doesn't show anything but the Win7 PC?

It is possible that there is more than one issue at work here. Your XP box can ping Win7 but can't connect even using direct connect. This could be a network policy that your works sysadmins have in place for when the laptops are not connected to the work network.

As you guess I can't see any other machines on the network save the router. I've even tried changing DHCP settings on my router to give my home network the same IP address range as work to try and fool the laptop into thinking it's at work and dropping it's protections but it's cleverer than that.

I'm going to talk to the network/laptop guys and try and find out what is blocking it - although they might not be too keen to know I'm hacking my laptop to let a third party application run on it... Time for a Diplomacy skill check.

So why do you care about running the MT server on the Win7 laptop?

The main reason is that my work provides me with a laptop and the ability to work from home when I want to. I take the laptop with me pretty much everywhere - and certainly to work each day and home each night. Therefore it is the perfect place to do all my D&D prep and keep all my D&D stuff. I install the Character Builder and Adventure Tools on there. I have Masterplan for campaign design. And I have MT for running games. I do prep at lunchtimes on my work laptop and it's where I have my most up to date D&D stuff.

Although I could move all this to my home laptop each time I want to run a game, that would be lots of extra hassle - having to always sync back and forth between the two. Plus, on the days I run a game (Wednesdays) I'd have to bring my work laptop and my "play" laptop into the office and on to the friend's house where I run the game from. I'd rather just take one lappy around with me.

Also, my work laptop is a brand new, top of the range machine with Windows 7, quad core, 8GB RAM, etc, etc, etc. It's much more fun to use than my three year old Windows XP laptop.

That's why.

[Blakey]

Ok, well that pretty much narrows it down. So we are fighting your IT admin.

Yes, agreed. As I said in my last post I'm going to try and find out what is blocking it and if there is anything I can do about it.

The non-domain account that you log in locally with, does it have local admin rights? I assume it does not.

I have local admin rights on the laptop. However we have lots of stuff that is handed down from above (sorry, not sure of the network terminology for this) and which I can't change.

For example. I cannot change the permissions on Windows Firewall. That is handed down to me from above. But as I have local admin I can switch the firewall service off. As I've said that doesn't fix it however.

McAfee is installed. It says nothing about a firewall but it might be buillt in and hidden I guess. I can't stop that in the services as I don't have permission to do so.

[maleitch]

Ok, well that pretty much narrows it down. So we are fighting your IT admin.

Yes, agreed. As I said in my last post I'm going to try and find out what is blocking it and if there is anything I can do about it.

The non-domain account that you log in locally with, does it have local admin rights? I assume it does not.

I have local admin rights on the laptop. However we have lots of stuff that is handed down from above (sorry, not sure of the network terminology for this) and which I can't change.

For example. I cannot change the permissions on Windows Firewall. That is handed down to me from above. But as I have local admin I can switch the firewall service off. As I've said that doesn't fix it however.

McAfee is installed. It says nothing about a firewall but it might be buillt in and hidden I guess. I can't stop that in the services as I don't have permission to do so.

In the windows world, usually these restrictions are caused by a Group Policy which are nothing more than a bunch of registry settings.

Just to clarify, you are positive that your local user account is a member of the Administrators group?

[maleitch]

One more thing, when you right click on the McAfee icon in the system tray, do you get any sort of menu, and can you interact with it in any sort of way?

[jfrazierjr]

Although I could move all this to my home laptop each time I want to run a game, that would be lots of extra hassle - having to always sync back and forth between the two. Plus, on the days I run a game (Wednesdays) I'd have to bring my work laptop and my "play" laptop into the office and on to the friend's house where I run the game from. I'd rather just take one lappy around with me.

DropBox

[Azhrei]

DropBox

Yeah, but he likely wouldn't be able to access it from work; although he could make local changes to it and the next time he does connect it would auto-update.

Does Win7 still have a "safe mode" boot option? In that mode, I'll bet the firewall isn't running. If you can safe-mode-boot-with-networking, then you could run MapTool from there, but you'd need to reboot later when the game was over.

You could also boot a Linux live CD and run MapTool under Linux. The Linux side will still have access to the (supposedly) NTFS on the laptop. And this technique would give you control over the entire machine. The live CD route doesn't install anything on the hard drive (uses a RAM disk for any files that are changed) so you'd want one with Java 6 included, such as Linux Mint 9. And if you were really desperate you could get one with VirtualBox installed and boot Win7 from the hard drive into a virtual machine.

All of those techniques skirt the need for admin rights. But you're better off playing within the company's rules, if possible.

[Blakey]

DropBox

Wow. Just went and looked at this. It looks like the perfect solution. I've just installed it on my home PC and am about to install it on my work one too (as I'm at home). Of course it remains to be seen if I can access it at work. It seems I can access it via the Web, which would be good enough as we have full web access at work.

This solution, if it works, completely sorts my problems and allows me to use my home laptop to run games (which I know works).

I'll let you know how I get on.

Oh, and tomorrow my pal is bringing a router and laptop into work so we're going to try and set up our own LAN and work out what we can do about the work laptop - I'll try safe mode booting as an option.

[Phergus]

The main reason is that...

Makes sense.

Don't forget though that you can always host on your XP laptop but do all your work laptop still. Just have to get the campaign file onto it. Dropbox may help you out there.

[Blakey]

DropBox looks great, but surprise, surprise it doesn't work when I'm at work.

Going to see if I can configure it to work and also try out my work laptop on a LAN here in the office today to see what I can fix up.

[Blakey]

Bingo.

The issue was Windows Firewall all along. It seems that it is set up such that if you stop the Firewall service after it comes up then what it actually does is silently block all communication with the laptop. I don't know if this is some defence mechanism built into Windows 7 as this doesn't happen on Windows XP, or if this is something my work has set up.

However, if you go further and completely disable Windows Firewall from the services menu, so that it never even starts up at all, then it happily leaves all ports open and suddenly I am able to ping my Win7 laptop. I've also tried running an MT server on the local LAN we set up at work and it all runs fine.

All I need to try now is taking the work lappy home and starting a server there which is up on the Net and all is good in the world!!! Will report back how that gets on later today.

Thanks heaps for all your help on this one guys - it was a really tough nut to crack.

Cheers
Blakey

[maleitch]

Bingo.

The issue was Windows Firewall all along. It seems that it is set up such that if you stop the Firewall service after it comes up then what it actually does is silently block all communication with the laptop. I don't know if this is some defence mechanism built into Windows 7 as this doesn't happen on Windows XP, or if this is something my work has set up.

However, if you go further and completely disable Windows Firewall from the services menu, so that it never even starts up at all, then it happily leaves all ports open and suddenly I am able to ping my Win7 laptop. I've also tried running an MT server on the local LAN we set up at work and it all runs fine.

All I need to try now is taking the work lappy home and starting a server there which is up on the Net and all is good in the world!!! Will report back how that gets on later today.

Thanks heaps for all your help on this one guys - it was a really tough nut to crack.

Cheers
Blakey

But did you disable this under your work domain account?

[Blakey]

It's already disabled when at work - the work firewall keeps everything out. I'm home now and have just tried it for real and it's all working perfectly.

Excellent news.

Blakey

[Phergus]

Glad you got it working.

You do know there is no reason at all to disable the Windows Firewall. You simply create exceptions for Java when prompted and all is fine.

[neofax]

FYI: Most corporate firewalls can be defeated by using https: DropBox has a https: side that works great. Not that I use this by any means, just read it somewhere.