Two Steps Forward...

[timill]

and none back yet.

Yesterday evening the_magician disconnected the ADSL modem from Marcia's machine and plugged in the router we'd got. Follow the instructions for configuration, and hey presto it all worked. Just like that - straight out of the box.

I took the wireless connector down to my study and added it to my machine. First problem - blank screen on power up - fixed by pushing the monitor cable back in. Put the CD in the drive, answer the questions, and it finds the network OK. Not much signal, but enough to be going on with. Try IE, and get nothing that isn't in the cache already. Check the connection info, and it's clear that it hasn't installed properly. Press the "repair" button, and up pops a Zone Alarm warning that it's prevented some process trying to access the router's address (198.168.1.1? I forget). Add that to the Trusted Zone and everything starts working as expected.

Still To Do: pull the 486 box out and move it to storage in the garage. I'd be tempted to set it up as a file store running Linux, but that would mean finding and installing a network card, and it's not worth the hassle.

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> pull the 486 box out and move it to storage in the garage.
> I'd be tempted to set it up as a file store running Linux,

I have found that some of my old machines can't actually cope with the very recent big hard disks. To get them working as file servers with a decent sized hard disk would require an IDE expansion card. Generally it ends up being more trouble than it is worth.

Of course if the aim is to get experience of playing with Linux then go for it!

PS You have probably just disabled Zone Alarm by adding the router to its trusted zone. Make sure your router is running a firewall as well... it probably is.

It *might* have been uPnP on your PC talking to the router and trying to configure itself. I dislike the idea of computers configuring themselves without you asking them.

[timill]

PS You have probably just disabled Zone Alarm by adding the router to its trusted zone. Make sure your router is running a firewall as well... it probably is.
It's a Linksys WAP54G, IIRC, and should be running a firewall.

What ZA should still be protecting me against is (a) things that try to dial home from my machine and (b) nasties on other machines on the network, so inside the router's firewall, such as visiting laptops &c.

Hmm. Stuff from outside the network should still have its original IP address in the From field, I'd have thought, so would be bounced by default. Must read up on this stuff... [fx: opens Networking for Dummies]

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Zone Alarm tends to be a little on the flaky side on networks. Can you transfer data to and from the other computers?

I've ended up putting Tiny Firewall on the laptop and win 98 box, there seem to be fewer problems with it, with XP firewall activated on the XP box and the hardware firwall in the router. With that and anti-virus software, the beta of Windows anti-spyware program, an occasional run of Ad-aware, and Norton anti-virus I'm feeling moderately secure on the XP box, which does 99% of the work.

[cobrabay.livejournal.com]

I've never had any problems running ZoneAlarm within networks, though it is quite a while since I've used the free version, I have ZoneAlarm SecureSuite on the home machines and ZoneAlarm Integrity Client on the work laptop. Even with a simple firewall on my router (an Alcatel Speedtouch) I still get a couple of external alerts a minute on ZoneAlarm. Always worthwhile checking that the firewall on the router is actually doing something. I found that mine by default was on, but letting everything through.
I'm trying the beta Microsoft AntiSpyware too, it's quite good, picks up a few things that Spybot & Ad-Aware miss.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I've tested the firewall on Gibson Research's site, seems to be doing the things it should. It's a linksys, seems to work OK.

Re Zone Alarm, it's the free version I'm talking about - never used the paid version, ran into so many problems with the free one it put me off. lproven can tell you plenty of stories about his experiences with it.

[timill]

So far as I can tell from hanging out in tech conferences on cix, ZA is perfectly capable of working fine for many people, but if you start having problems you'll never get it under control.

So far, it's all working fine for us...