Rendezvous not working

mmmpie

I have a small network at home, an emac and an ibook. They are both hooked up to an 8 port switch, which also has an adsl modem attached. My adsl provider is verizon, and they quite happily allocate an ip to each of my machines. Both machines can access the 'real' world perfectly well.



I thought I would be able to use rendezvous functions between my two macs, but nothing works. Both machines have the OS X firewall enabled ( one is panther, one is jaguar ). Do I need to open some ports in the firewall to let rendezvous through?



I did try to setup a 'local' net, by adding a new network device to each machine and using 192.168 addresses. But Im not sure how to get rendezvous to use that address preferentially.



Im guessing it is something to do with routing, as when I access my website ( hosted one of the machines ) to transfer file, the transfer has to go out the modem. However, Im not sure how to go about setting up routing for this network, where both machines have dynamic ip's.



[EDIT]

I guess my adsl modem is a router, but Ive never seen anything to confirm that suspicion.

ebby

I havn't seen any routers with built in modems for consumers yet. I am surprised Verizon allows you to hook up all your computers to a switch and assigns an IP address for each. That is not common in the broadband world. (well, you would have to pay more)



I think your problem is that rendezvous needs a LAN to work and your ISP is preventing networks like that on their network. I suggest buying a router and sticking it in between your switch and modem. Verizon will just see one device but all your computers and rendezvous will work on the LAN it creates.

mmmpie

One of the cool things about verizon is that they let as many machines on the connection as you want to put on.



I think the modem is a router ( Ive certainly seen other modems that are routers ) because it quite happily supports multiple machines running through it.

cosmonut

The point is that Rendezvous will only work if the IPs of the computers are distributed by a LOCAL router on your network. Two computers in the same house with very different IPs are no different than two arbitrary computers anywhere on the internet.

ebby

All a modem does is convert your network signals to Verizon's network signals. Unless your modem has a web configuration page and a IP address, (and perhaps 4 different ethernet ports on the back) it does not have a built in router.



I'm guessing this is kinda like your setup. (I know there is a switch between your computers and the modem but your network doesn't really see it)

1----

2----\\

..Verizon.. [modem]----ISP servers

3----/

4----

I think the thing that is happening is your computers are all talking directly to the ISP servers and those servers are blocking your Rendezvous network.



What you need:

1----

2----\\

...LAN ... [router]----[modem]----ISP servers

3----/

4----



This setup will splice the network into two pieces, a home LAN and Verizon's internet. Instead of talking to the ISP servers, your computers talk to the router on your new LAN which allows Rendezvous. The router will still allow you to access the internet but will also block hackers and mask your network from the internet. (safer than just a firewall)Verizon

mmmpie

If you read what I wrote, everything is connected by a switch.



emac -----

\\___switch_____modem____internet

/

ibook-----





Nothing connects directly to the modem except the switch. My understanding of rendezvous is that it uses broadcast packets[?], so everything attached to the switch should receive the broadcast.

mmmpie

My panther upgrade discs finally arrived from Apple, so I installed it last night. Rendezvous now works, at least for ichat. I guess jaguar is just broken for my network config.

ghost_user_name

While on the subject...



How does OSX handel DSL?

Does it setup a PPPoE interface?



On my Linux box, I connect to the internet via DSL modem. The modem is connected by ethernet to my switch, to which all other capable computers in the house are then connected. On my box I see two(three) interfaces, ppp0 and eth0 (and lo) so one interface is used to connect to my ISP (ppp0) and the other (eth0) is up for my local network.



Does OSX work the same way? Is this kinda thing locked under-the-hood? How much control do you have over rendezvous?



I would be a little bothered if a program just did everything for me without any input from me, it would make me feel a bit open, if you know what I mean.

mmmpie

Its up to your ISP. It is typical to use pppoe.

However, many routers targeted at dsl users can handle the pppoe connection for you.

Ive had two dsl accounts, and one cable:



the cable network just looked like ethernet, I think the modem is really a bridge between two physical mediums running the same protocol [?].



dsl one had pppoe implemented on the modem. You have to browse to the modem and setup the pppoe username and password etc.



dsl two just works, no setup. It might be preprogrammed, but since verizon has no bandwidth limit they might just not care.



My current dsl modem has a usb port as well as ethernet, Im not sure what you see when you use the usb, since there doenst seem to be os x drivers for it. Some modems have a usb -> ethernet adapter built into them, others establish pppoe.

ghost_user_name

I like PPPoE much better then USB based modems... I have had a lot of problems with USB based modems in the past and PPPoE is painless to setup.



Anyhow, if your Mac sets up a PPPoE connection, then you should be able to setup the LAN part via the term. I am not sure what program OSX uses for this (because I am OSX deprived) but on my linux box the command is "ifconfig" and I can do almost anything I need via that commmand. For example to give my computer an IP, I just type this (as root), "ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 up". I could go more into detail (like give it a defult gateway... etc) but the defults are applied when not given by a user.



Is this the same under OSX?

Let me guess, there is some nifty app that will do this for you...

mmmpie

When you go to the network control panel you can specify that an interface is pppoe, with appropriate settings - looks very easy.



You can duplicate your port ( easily ) and specify that the duplicate is some other protocol ( eg: a local network ).



Because my modem gives me a verizon ip, I have another network interface setup to handle the local network, which stuff seems to work over pretty easily.



My only problem is that my shared printer is binding to the verizon port, and not the local port, so even rendezvous cant see it. Im not sure how to fix that, guess Ill have to learn all about cups.