Accessing XP Shares from NT4.

Spicer

Hi All,

This is my first post so please be kind....

I've hit upon a bit of a snag and it's really got me stumped. I'm running an NT4 server and want to be able to connect to a share on an XP machine from it. However, it's not quite as straight-forward as all that. The NT4 server has two NICs in it. One has an IP address that is in the range for the rest of the network and is used to log the server onto the domain (2003 server).

The other network card has an IP associated with it that is within a range that I want to use to connect the share on the XP machine.

Just as a bit of background, I'm wanting to backup a large amount of data from the NT4 server to the XP machine on a nightly basis and want to use Gig speed cards at both ends. This is because I'm running 10/100 switches and it'd take eons to get that amount of data through the switches to the backup share (it's about 90Gb).

From the NT4 server I can ping devices in the IP range for the rest of the network (let's call this range A) and can also ping the XP machine via the other network card using the address in Range B. However, although I can ping the machine with no problems I can not access the share or even get the NT4 machine to see the XP machine. I keep 'Network Path not found' errors.

I have a suspicion that this could be due to a DNS problem, but was under the impression (always a precursor to being wrong), that this would be a problem as I'm only ever trying to connect to the XP machine using the IP address. \\x.x.x.x\Share

I can connect to the share on the XP machine from other machines without a problem, including another NT4 machine, but there is only one NIC in that with a Range B address configured.

Any help would be gratefully received..

Cheers,

Spicer

kryyst

try mapping it in dos

on the nt machine do:
net use y: \\x.x.x.x\Share

The see what kind of error message is generates.

Spicer

Hi Kryyst,

Cheers for replying. It comes back with:

System error 53
The network path is not found.

mtrox

I like kryyst idea. If you can't get there by going to the share IP address, I wonder if you need to confirm that the XP is sharing OK. If it can share at all, [URL="file://\\192.168.1.200\share"]\\192.168.1.200\share[/URL] should get you there [pretend for a minute that's the IP of the XP machine]

If you just network some random laptop to the XP machine can you get to the share? Forget browsing at this point, type in the name of the share...by IP address at the most base level.

Spicer

Hi guys,

I've only ever been trying to access the share via a DOS prompt using Net use, and can map to the share from another NT4 machine using that method. The only difference between the one that maps OK and the one that does not is that the working one only has one NIC in it with a 'Range B' IP address. The machine that will not map to it has two NICs, and is logging onto the domain using the 1st card with the 'Range A' address (192.168.1.x) as well as trying to map to the XP machine via the 2nd card and the 'Range B' address (10.10.10.x).

Due to this I'm assuming that the presence of the 1st card must be causing the problem (could of course be wrong).

As an experiment I tried swapping which NIC had which IP address so that they were now set up as

Card 1 - 10.10.10.2 (to connect to the backup share)
Card 2 - 192.168.1.22 (to connect to the domain)

After rebooting the machine would not log onto the domain as it could not find a domain controller. I logged on as a local account to get onto the machine. I could now not map to any shares on any other machines on the domain (could not find the path). I could also not map to the share on the XP machine, getting this...

System Error 1311
Currently no logon servers available to service the logon request.

I'm less worried about that last error than I am about the NT4 server only being able to use the 1st NIC to be able to communicate with other machines (including my DCs). Do you know if this is normal NT4 behaviour, or should it be able to use either NIC with a equal level of functionality?

Thanks for your help guys....

kryyst

You should be able to have 2 nics in 1 machine looking at seperate networks, that's the whole basis of routing. That machine will have 2 networks that it can see and it knows which nic to use to get to which network as long as the nics are setup correctly.

But the bottom line is, if you can ping the machine your networking is setup correctly. When sharing isn't working it's almost always a user authentication issue.

instead of mapping the share try this

net use /user:[user on the xp machine] Y: \\x.x.x.x\c$ (or d$ or whatever drive the share is on, and you have to have the $ sign). Hopefully it'll prompt you for a password for that user.

Thrax

If you have one machine looking at two separate networks, make sure to manually define the metric of the interface.

Spicer

Kryyst, I still get the path not found error, even when stipulating the user and trying to connect to one of the administrative shares of the machine. I think it's just not recognising it properly.

Thrax, you're a little above my head there, and so this is obviously something I haven't done. How do I go about manually defining the metrics of the interface?

Thanks for your continuing help guys.

kryyst

Have you tried mapping from the xp machine to the nt machine?

Also do you have a limit set on the xp machine as to the number of machines that can connect to it?

Spicer

If I try the reverse ie. attempting to map to the C$ share on the NT machine from the XP machine I get the same error.

System Error 53
Network path was not found.

Again, I can ping it fine, but no access to shares or browsing.


The share on the XP machine has maximum connections allowed (I've also tried specifying a high number just in case this made a difference) and permissions are set so that Everyone has full control.

mtrox

Spicer, I re-read the whole thread and at this point I can't help but wonder, do you just need to use the Giga card for the network, buy a Giga switch and make sure the server and the XP macine are both on that switch?

Spicer

I was hoping to keep the connection between the NT4 Server (which incidentally is a SAP R/3 server) and the backup machine separate from the rest of the network. I need to backup the SAP database (90Gb and growing fast) on a nightly basis and I'm running out of space on the DLT tapes that I'm currently backing up on and my solution was to backup to disk on the XP machine and then store weekly backups off site using a removable HDD.

Because of the size of the data that would be shifted every night, I didn't want to have that traffic moving around on the same switches as the traffic for the other backups that I run overnight (I use remote agent to backup several other machines to a tape device in a 3rd server). The users are content with the 10/100 speed network that they have and so wanted to keep expenditure to a minimum (my budget isn't vast).

If nothing else this problem is annoying me for as far as I know it should work. I have no aversion to work-rounds, but not knowing the cause or if I've missed something that I should know about ires me.

I could get a Gig speed switch and then run everything through that using a single IP range, and if I can't find a resolution for this strangeness it will have to be the way I go, unless anyone has any bright ideas?

kryyst

Install the netbios protocol on the NT4 server.