Networking with XP

[lamarckxerox]

Evening,

As a total novice I apologise in advance for my inevitably stupid questions, but I'm stuck so help please!

A can't network between my pi and xp desktop. They used to (and I don't know how I did it) but in an excess of zeal I reinstalled raspian, and never again!

I have tried everything I can find on various forums, but to no avail.

I would appreciate any guidance you can give me...

[nickthefish]

can't network between my pi and xp desktop

Can you clarify what it is you are trying to achieve, please? File-sharing? SSH?

If you are having trouble with SSH'ing into the Pi from your desktop (eg via Putty) - check that SSH is enabled on the Pi. run sudo raspi-config from terminal to enable.

If you are unable to access desktop network shares on your Pi then check your /etc/fstab configuration.

If you are unable to access Pi shares via Samba on your desktop then check /etc/samba/smb.conf

[lamarckxerox]

Evening nickthefish,

I am trying to fileshare...

I have checked my fstab configuration but it means little to my addled brain (I warned about stupid questions), see below:

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/mmcblk0p6 /boot vfat defaults 0 2
/dev/mmcblk0p7 / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
# a swapfile is not a swap partition, no line here
# use dphys-swapfile swap[on|off] for that

Shares on samba are as they should be as far as I am aware...

[ripat]

From your XP host, can you ping the Rpi?
What are the IP addresses of the two hosts?
How do you connect to the Rpi?

[stderr]

I am trying to fileshare...

I think they want to know if the files are on the pi or the XP box or both. Given what you have for an fstab, it doesn't look like you've got a lot of drives on the pi.

If your issue is connecting from XP to the pi, grab Mobaxterm (or something similar), e.g. http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/download-home-edition.html . (I think the above is the URL that is the people who make the software and therefore the least likely to include spyware and all the usual Windows stuff) With this, you can run ssh and sftp which will allow you to transfer files to and from the pi.

If you want to mount directories from the pi on your XP box, I think you'll want to configure samba on the pi. But I'm sure there are other ways to do it.

[lamarckxerox]

I can`t ping the rpi...

It`s ip is 192.168.43.171, the XP box`s is 192.168.43.200.

I am trying connect via wifi and ethernet (separately and together).

I have tried mobaxterm, but it won`t connect...

[ripat]

I can`t ping the rpi...

No ping, no network unless you are blocking ICMP packets on the Pi. Your problem is a networking problem. Try to sort that out first. Connect both devices on a dumb switch, give them two fixed IP for the test with the same network mask and try again.

[RaTTuS]

mixing wifi and wired may cause you some issues - some router will not route wi-fi to Ethernet
1) make sure you gates ways are the same
2) get rid of XP - it is probably riddled with viruses trash it and install debian on it
3) seriously get rid of XP
4) sort out the network so everything can talk to each other via wired connections
5) then add wireless

[ripat]

Normally, when two devices are on the same subnet, they stay at layer 2. No need for routing (L3). I would rather check the vlan settings of the switch part of the router/switch. On all AP that I came across, wired and WiFi were not segregated as long as they belong to the same subnet.

[Edit] Try to wire both device. And if it works, than the internals of your router/switch/AP must be the culprit. Usually in a router/switch/AP device, the WiFi and ethernet are on two different physical ports. One port for all the wired connections (WAN and LAN) and the other one for WiFi (WLAN). The first one is is divided in two vlan's, one for WAN (wired internet) and the other vlan is for the LAN (all the switch ports of your wired internal network). That second vlan should be bridged in some way with the physical port providing WiFi. If that bridge does not exists or has been disabled, than you might not be able to connect wired and wireless device together, even if they belong to the same subnet.

[lamarckxerox]

Thankyou for your responses... XP is using the default gateway, and rpi is on 192.168.43.1. If it is relevant I had to set a static IP address on the XP box to get ethernet to work.

I would love to trash XP and put on Debian, but I need a windows box for a specific project. This thing is a P4 I (literally) found in a skip, so I don't expect too much of it (one day I'll build a nice machine, when the god of money favours me!). In the mean time I really want them to communicate, particularly as it has already happened!

It isn't a router thing as I don't have one! I live in rural France, and getting a cable to my door is expensive... so the whole shebang communicates via a 3g card in my phone (better than you would imagine, actually!)

So thanks, but still help! I am convinced that there is configuration task which I have messed up rather than a more fundamental problem...

[stderr]

Thankyou for your responses... XP is using the default gateway, and rpi is on 192.168.43.1. If it is relevant I had to set a static IP address on the XP box to get ethernet to work.

It isn't a router thing as I don't have one!

How are they connected together? You mention using 3g for the internet, the most you can do with the pi and the XP box each with one place to put ethernet cables is to connect each other. If the XP box is connected to the 3g with wifi and then the rpi is connected to the XP box with ethernet, this is a more complicated network than usual and the automatic configuration efforts of all the machines will probably not work. I don't know why they worked for a period, which I think you said earlier.

I just went back and read some of the previous stuff. Since you are mixing wifi and ethernet, I think you need to either do it in a different way or configure the XP box to share internet. As I recall, the included stuff for that is pretty poor but it can work. It might be limited to certain subnets, I am a bit hazy in recall here.

But since your phone is putting out wifi, why can't the pi just get its own wifi dongle and connect that way? Why can't the XP dongle go on the pi and then XP connects through the pi ethernet to wifi and then the 3g? The XP box does have an external wifi dongle, right?

The reason for thinking about doing it this way is because you are more likely to get success using the Linux box as a router than the old Windows one, I mean with each system's built in software. Also, people won't be telling you so often to erase XP and put Debian on it which you don't want to do because, you know, you want to be able to run your Windows programs.

[fruitoftheloom]

Personally I have found that using XP to connect to another device via Ethernet it is easier just to setup Internet Connection Sharing:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/310563


Then XP is a basic DHCP Server and the device it connects to becomes a DHCP Client

[lamarckxerox]

Both the rpi and the xbox have theit wifi dongles and access the web via wifi tethering via my phone. Ethernet was added I suppose, just because I could, and the rpi and xbox are connected via a hub. When it was working, I only managed to fileshare via ethernet.

However, both happily access the web via 3g...

I would love to use the pi as a router (if I could make it work)

[stderr]

Both the rpi and the xbox have theit wifi dongles and access the web via wifi tethering via my phone. Ethernet was added I suppose, just because I could, and the rpi and xbox are connected via a hub. When it was working, I only managed to fileshare via ethernet.
However, both happily access the web via 3g...
I would love to use the pi as a router (if I could make it work)

You are adding to the information you provided before. If you are using, say, one of the machines to connect to the internet via wifi and the phone, and then you connect it via the ethernet cable, depending on various things, software in the device might attempt to change routing and whatnot to match this new configuration. This could be why it worked for you and then it did not.

Another point is that you might not be able to get from the pi to XP through the phone because software in the phone might not allow that. Consider you are at Starbucks and you use their wifi. You would not want someone else using their wifi to have access to your phone. It's the same way with your router or your phone acting like a router, it can be possible to set it to disallow connections between devices, just allowing access to the internet. I don't know if that's the default with your phone or if it can be changed.

If you want to have two network connections on a device at the same time, you will probably want to turn off the various auto-configuration things because they are likely to auto-configure wrong. You want to set the default route yourself and have static ip addresses or at least dhcp ones that don't change. You are not trying to set up two networks though, you are just trying to set the default route through the phone via wifi and the local network out through eth0 or whatever it is called.

[ripat]

If I understand correctly, both device (XP and Pi) receive an ip for their wireless interface from your tethering phone. Now you would like to wire them together through a switch or hub, right?

Their wired interface must receive a ip from a DHCP server. Is that the one running on your XP? Have you checked if the XP has an ip on its wired interface (eth0?)?

[fruitoftheloom]

You can not create a WiFi Network for File Sharing if you are using the Phone as a WiFi Htspot (Tethering)

You will need to set up you RPi with 2 Wireless Adaptors and use the RPi as a Hotspot, something like:

http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/qu ... i-adapters

[lamarckxerox]

Evening everyone,

I have finally made it work! I gave up for a week, then following an intuition, I reformatted the sd and restarted from scratch... and, bang straight into the network.

Thankyou for all you advice