Re: The specified network name is nolonger available

From: Roland Hall (nobody_at_nowhere)
Date: 03/04/04 

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 17:24:30 -0600

<aa> wrote in message news:u6AykGiAEHA.444@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

First of all, good responses. You will not understand everything at one
time and it will take time, as it did with all of us. It's good that you're
asking questions and being honest and telling us when you do not understand.
You have no idea how refreshing that is.

: Roland,
: 1. I have no problems with pinging both using names or IP addresses
: Problem arise when I am trying to acces files via Windows Explorer

What is the error message you get? And this is easier from the command
line, IMHO.
If you can ping by name ping computer2 (or whatever the name is) and it
returns successful, then we need to verify workgroups and authentication.
Ping by name success = NetBIOS works
Ping by IP Address - TCP/IP works ( a given if NetBIOS over TCP/IP works)

: Moreover after I, as Stiven suggested mapped drives using IP addresses
: instead of computerNames, the "The specified network name is nolonger
: available" does not occur any longer when I acces a network drive in
: WindowsExplorer-->My Computer.

Then you have a naming issue. Accessing by IP address and then access files
is NOT the same as accessing the computer by name. Just because you can map
to a share with IP, that does not mean you do not have a naming issue. You
do!

: The problem still persists when I attempt to acccess these drives via My
: Network Places or Computers near me. This does not bother me as I fail to
: understand what these features are for as accessing drives is much easier
: via My computer.

This doesn't work because you have a naming issue.

: But mapping drives with IP address means that I cannot use DHCP. For the
: moment this is not a problem too, but I am interested to understand why
DHCP
: is not working on my setup.
: It looks like people covered every possibilities except the router -
perhaps
: its DHCP is corrupted?

I doubt that DHCP is corrupted but DHCP can provide more than dynamic IP
addresses and it would be nice to see the following, even if you've covered
it before:

LMHOSTS - please post the contents here for BOTH computers
HOSTS - humor me
ipconfig /all (run this on both computers and show both here)

: 2/ Try to ping by FQDN. This requires a domain. ping
computer2.domain.com
: > (domain.com is a variable, not a literal)
:
: I do not have a domain. How do I set up one? Please mind that we are
talking
: abour w2kPro, not Server

That's why you don't have one and why you cannot have one. It requires a
server.

: 3. \\server\share.
: > Note: Server means server service. If a computer is running F&P
Sharing,
: > then it is running a F&P Sharing Service
:
: You have confused me very thoroughly -please do not forget I am a layman.

\ in MSFT networking is called a whack. \\server\share is UNC (Universal
Naming Convention)
\\server tells MSFT OS to look for a computer running the File and Printer
sharing service with this [server] name. My server is named FS1. I can:
ping \\fs1 and I will get a successful return. It will also tell me that
the IP address is 192.168.0.9. I can see it because I have NetBIOS over
TCP/IP enabled on my client and on my server. Since NetBIOS requires TCP/IP
to be a transport, I also know that TCP/IP is working properly (within my
subnet).

If I type in: ipconfig /all
I get information about my network settings of the client/server I'm on.
Things that are important are:

host name, primary DNS suffix, DNS suffix search list, connection-specific
DNS suffix, DHCP enabled?, Autoconfiguration enabled?, IP Address, Subnet
Mask, DFG (default gateway), DHCP Server. These are important and we have
no idea what yours are.

: Without going into too much details here, do you mean me trying
: \\computerName\shared_folder_name in the command prompt, then this works
: fine.

If you just type in \\computername\share you won't get anything. If you type
in:
dir \\computername\c$ and get a list of files, then that will tell me
something. This assumes you running with an administrative account.

What else that would be useful is for you to type in:
net use

...and show us the results.

: 4. I am very much confused about sharing permissions.

You're not alone. Here is a simple explanation.

Your share on your computer is the front door. You have to give me
permission, in advance, for me to enter your house via your front door.

NTFS permissions (file system rights) defines which rooms I have access to
in your house, ONCE I get in through the front door and what I can do while
I'm in those rooms. Can I only look around? Can I place something in them?
Can I remove something from them?

Now, you can give me NTFS permissions to your whole drive (all rooms in your
house) but if I do not have share rights, they're useless. (If I cannot get
in through the front door, having permission to do something in the rooms is
useless).

So, you have to set permissions for a person, or a group. If you set
permissions for a group, any user that needs access will need to be in that
group. On W2K and XP, you right-click on My Computer and choose Manage to
get to your user permissions in a workgroup environment, or local domain as
it is actually called since NT.

: I started a separate
: thead on this subject and people there assured me that EVERYONE should
: suffice for my purpose.

Yes, the EVERYONE will suffice but it is a security risk to use.

: Are they wrong?

No. They're just not security conscious.

: So everyone does not actualy mean
: everyone and I indeed need to set permissions on my peer-to-peer network?

EVERYONE DOES MEAN EVERYONE, including anonymous users and THAT is why it is
a bad idea to use it. However, technically, it will work.

Let us see the settings I requested so we can see for ourselves and we'll go
from there. Ask any questions you want and if you need clarification on
anything, let us know. 

-- 
Roland Hall
/* This information is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability
or fitness for a particular purpose. */
Online Support for IT Professionals -
http://support.microsoft.com/servicedesks/technet/default.asp?fr=0&sd=tech
How-to: Windows 2000 DNS:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;308201

Relevant Pages

  • Re: The specified network name is nolonger available
    ... My server is named FS1. ... > ping \\fs1 and I will get a successful return. ... I still can access the drives marked ... What is the point in these permissions as they can be bypassed by mapping ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.networking)
  • Re: Help!! Web Server outage - ping failure
    ... Ping from workstation: .2 fails, ... secondary IP from the server and get responses. ... the difference in settings between dhcp and setting ip manually. ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis)
  • Re: Can someone help with DHCP?
    ... >>set name servers and searched domains via DHCP. ... >>I have a LAN router,at 192.168.0.254 which is a DHCP server and a DNS ... DHCP is enabled on the router. ... I can ping my domian by name, the server is on the other side of the ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • RE: auto deactivate wlan upon lan connection(docking)
    ... ' This script pings a server specified as the DHCP variable below. ... ' Collect a Ping response from the DHCP server on the LAN. ... ' Collect all of the NICs with IPs. ...
    (Security-Basics)
  • Re: dns name resolution
    ... > I'am having a problem in dns server. ... > IP from dhcp the information gets added in the dns.when i ... > name it trys to ping with old Ip(which assigned by dhcp ... > server) and displays request timed out. ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.dns)