Can't see 2008 R2 server, but can see clients?

[kinetix63 Veteran]

Hi Guys,

Hope you can help with this one. I'm sure it's something stupidly obvious, I'm just not sure what!

I have a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine sat on my home network - it's a test box pretty much that I use for messing around with. I've enabled "Network Discovery", ensured the UPnP service is running, and turned the windows firewall off, but I simply can't see the machine on the internal network from any client machines when you click Start -> Computer, and choose Network on the left hand side. If I open up a command prompt and ping via hostname - it works fine, I get a response. If I try and connect to it via hostname in Windows Explorer by typing \\myhomeserver\ - I get an "You do not have permission to access \\myhomeserver" message. However, if I connect to it via IP Address \\192.168.2.3\ then I'm prompted for a user name and password and all works perfectly fine.

The other way round, however, I can see the clients on the network from the server without any problem at all!

I'm sure it's something really trivial, I just don't know what. Any suggestions much appreciated!

kinetix63

[xn--bya]

On the server 2008 R2 machine is the network its connected to a Public, Home or Work network?

[Japlabot]

Are they on the same domain/workgroup?

Have you recently had another OS installed on the network with the same hostname before installing 2008 R2? Might need to do ipconfig /flushdns and/or arp -d on the clients

In Server 2008 R2, in Network and Sharing centre, Make sure that the right options are enabled to allow clients to access the server.

Make sure that the Network is not set to Public (Should be Work/Home - not sure if you even get the Home option but you get the idea).

[kinetix63 Veteran]

On the server 2008 R2 machine is the network its connected to a Public, Home or Work network?

It's connected to a Home/Private network

Are they on the same domain/workgroup?

They are - not using a domain here, but using the standard "WORKGROUP" workgroup.

Have you recently had another OS installed on the network with the same hostname before installing 2008 R2? Might need to do ipconfig /flushdns and/or arp -d on the clients

Absolutely nothing on the network using the same hostname as this one, and never has been.

In Server 2008 R2, in Network and Sharing centre, Make sure that the right options are enabled to allow clients to access the server.

I've just triple checked - and they are definitely all set so that the machine is discoverable.

[giantsnyy]

an alternative would be to install the DNS server application and have all the clients get their DNS from that server.

[kinetix63 Veteran]

an alternative would be to install the DNS server application and have all the clients get their DNS from that server.

I don't REALLY want to do that as the machine won't be on 24/7.

Some additional info - I just tried connecting to a shared folder using \\myhomeserver\testfolder - instead of just \\myhomeserver. This seemed to get a little further - instead of just flatly denying me entry, or timing out, it just displayed an endless number of password dialog boxes, which just kept popping up over and over and over again....

[devi59]

an alternative would be to install the DNS server application and have all the clients get their DNS from that server.

I would say adding DNS to the Server and having all the clients come from that DNS would be easiest. It "should" already work the way you say you have it set up, but DNS isn't difficult.

[+BudMan MVC]

"ensured the UPnP service is running"

Has nothing to do with network browsing.

Your 2k8 server should win the election, but maybe not? You can view which machine is the master browser for your segment with a simple nbtstat -A IPaddress

example

C:\Windows\System32>nbtstat -A 192.168.1.6

gig:

Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.100] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Remote Machine Name Table

Name Type Status

---------------------------------------------

UBUNTU <00> UNIQUE Registered

UBUNTU <03> UNIQUE Registered

UBUNTU <20> UNIQUE Registered

..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

LOCAL <1D> UNIQUE Registered

LOCAL <1E> GROUP Registered

LOCAL <00> GROUP Registered

As ease of creating the browselist, even thought you can have multiple workgroups listed, and this has nothing to do with file sharing btw.. it will be easier to maintain the list if you only have 1 workgroup running local. So as stated make sure your 2k8 box and other machines are all in the same workgroup -- this will speed up population of the browselist.

BTW you might also want to make sure that only 1 box on your network can be the master browser, if you turn your machines on and off all the time.. you can do it with a reg entry - or you can just disable the computer browser service on any machine you do not want to be the browse master -- ie leave this service running on your server.

btw -- simple netview will show you the machines listed in your network browse list

C:\Windows\System32>net view

Server Name Remark

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\\P4-28G

\\PCH SMP8634 Share

\\QUAD-W7

\\UBUNTU ubuntu server (Samba, Ubuntu)

The command completed successfully.

See the p4-28g, that is a 2k8 server.

Some good resources on troubleshooting and understanding how browsing works

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BB89501A-3609-45DE-8E35-38251E1349F6&displaylang=en

Computer Browsing for SOHO Networks with Microsoft Windows

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=b5a2baba-cc80-4bcf-b1e4-d629028554e4&displaylang=en

Troubleshooting Computer Browsing on SOHO Networks with Microsoft Windows

edit: I don't REALLY want to do that as the machine won't be on 24/7.

Well if you have your machines on and off all the time, then yeah its quite possible for you to have some issues with the browselist - since first box on will start to maintain the list, then next box comes on there will be an election, etc. It should all work itself out, but right after you turn boxes on or off the list might be out of date, it can take quite some time for the browselist to get into sync, upwards of 45 minutes sometimes. Read the docs I linked too.

on a side note --- I for the life of me can not understand why users are so keen to the browselist, don't you know your computers name -- then just use that.. as to your access denied when using \\name Do you have netbios enabled?

example on your 2k8 box

C:\Users\Administrator>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : p4-28g

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : local.lan

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : local.lan

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel® PRO/1000 MT Network Connection

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0D-56-F0-F0-09

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.4(Preferred)

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.253

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.4

NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

[devi59]

I don't REALLY want to do that as the machine won't be on 24/7.

Some additional info - I just tried connecting to a shared folder using \\myhomeserver\testfolder - instead of just \\myhomeserver. This seemed to get a little further - instead of just flatly denying me entry, or timing out, it just displayed an endless number of password dialog boxes, which just kept popping up over and over and over again....

I know going from my Win 7 to Win XP with it if I didn't add the folder after it wouldn't connect. Plus off-topic, I have a Belkin N+ with a USB port for NAS and I can't ever access it, I get the same continuous login as you are and I can't figure out what the UN/PW is/could be a bug?

[+BudMan MVC]

As to access your usb plugged in device.. Are you using the storage manager software that comes with your router for that purpose? How are you access it -- you need to know the device name for the share ie \\ipaddressoffyourrouter\devicename if your just doing \\ipaddressofrouter that might be is sharing bug on their part, etc. From the manual it does not mention username, etc.

http://en-us-support.belkin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3363/kw/storage%20manager%20password/r_id/166

edit: As to access \\computername vs \\computername\share -- yeah its going to depend on the permissions you have setup.. So yeah its quite possible to have issues connecting to \\computername but be able to access \\compuername\share -- depending on on how your sharing and what permissions you have setup and what account your wanting to use, etc.

You can run into problems if your machine auths with the currently logged in account getting access denied, you may need to use other creds to auth, etc. etc.

[majortom1981]

have you actually disabled the windows firewall service ?

Can you access the server via ipp address ? example \\192.168.1.1\c$ ?

[kinetix63 Veteran]

Managed to solve the problem guys. It would appear at some point in time as part of my experimenting, I managed to install Hyper-V. As soon as I removed that, all now starts to work :)

[devi59]

As to access your usb plugged in device.. Are you using the storage manager software that comes with your router for that purpose? How are you access it -- you need to know the device name for the share ie \\ipaddressoffyourrouter\devicename if your just doing \\ipaddressofrouter that might be is sharing bug on their part, etc. From the manual it does not mention username, etc.

http://en-us-support...ssword/r_id/166

edit: As to access \\computername vs \\computername\share -- yeah its going to depend on the permissions you have setup.. So yeah its quite possible to have issues connecting to \\computername but be able to access \\compuername\share -- depending on on how your sharing and what permissions you have setup and what account your wanting to use, etc.

You can run into problems if your machine auths with the currently logged in account getting access denied, you may need to use other creds to auth, etc. etc.

I remember when I did a clean install and used the storage manager when I first bought the router it did work, but it hasn't in a long time, but I have done many reg hacks and things to my Win 7, plus I also moved up to the SP1 Beta. Its not a huge deal, the drive I was using is actually hooked to my PS3 and just has movies on it. I plan on using another drive at another point. Its all on my entertainment stand so its easy to get to. I have 2 laptops and a desktop in my kid's room so its really not a big deal, I was just mentioning it. The devicename and all that is known but it keeps asking for a stupid UN/PW and I can't access it because I don't know what it is. Also another off-point, the workgroup the router share is listed as is Belkin_N+ (which is of course, an illegal workgroup afaik and windows agrees with me)

[Japlabot]

Managed to solve the problem guys. It would appear at some point in time as part of my experimenting, I managed to install Hyper-V. As soon as I removed that, all now starts to work :)

I don't see what Hyper-V would have to do with it. I would put it down to something else that you did (or a certain amount of time has gone past for the problem to resolve itself), and uninstalling Hyper-V is a coincidence.

[majortom1981]

I don't see what Hyper-V would have to do with it. I would put it down to something else that you did (or a certain amount of time has gone past for the problem to resolve itself), and uninstalling Hyper-V is a coincidence.

HYPER-V installs virtual switching drivers and stuff. so if you dont configure hyper-v right all your network settings would get screwed up.

[devi59]

Managed to solve the problem guys. It would appear at some point in time as part of my experimenting, I managed to install Hyper-V. As soon as I removed that, all now starts to work :)

Thats why I like VMWare. Install it, take snapshots along the way of experimenting and if you screw it up, 3 seconds to revert to an older snapshot

[devi59]

As to access your usb plugged in device.. Are you using the storage manager software that comes with your router for that purpose? How are you access it -- you need to know the device name for the share ie \\ipaddressoffyourrouter\devicename if your just doing \\ipaddressofrouter that might be is sharing bug on their part, etc. From the manual it does not mention username, etc.

http://en-us-support...ssword/r_id/166

edit: As to access \\computername vs \\computername\share -- yeah its going to depend on the permissions you have setup.. So yeah its quite possible to have issues connecting to \\computername but be able to access \\compuername\share -- depending on on how your sharing and what permissions you have setup and what account your wanting to use, etc.

You can run into problems if your machine auths with the currently logged in account getting access denied, you may need to use other creds to auth, etc. etc.

This topic was dead and I still was having issues, but I figured since I resolved my issue I would explain. Apparently since I'm using Win 7, it defaults the NTLM security to requiring 128 bit encryption. My NAS is a cheapo and doesn't have the security. Once I did this it worked -> Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Local Security Policy - Local Policies - Security Options

By default Windows Vista and Windows 7 sets the policy to "NTVLM2 responses only". Change this to "LM and NTLM ? use NTLMV2 session security if negotiated".

my SMB/NAS server worked after changing the option!

I followed this guide:

http://www.builderau.com.au/blogs/codemonkeybusiness/viewblogpost.htm?p=339270746