Windows2000 Gateway TimeOut

[Lancelot69fr]

Hi Everyone,

I am currently experiencing difficulties with a Windows 2k Gateway / Firewall.

The 2k server has 2 NIC's one connecting to the DSL router the other to the lan. There are 2 others xp stations on the lan which we use to work. The problem is browsing the web is horribly slow, so slow that most of the time our navigator times out before we get the httpresponse from the gateway. :angry:

The lan is pretty fast, it's a 100baseT and connecting between xp stations is easy and fast (even with the server when I share a folder on it).

Also this problem occurs only on xp stations, when I navigate the web from the server I never get this issue. I mentioned that I have a firewall, I don't think it is involved in this issue because I tried to turn it off, even to restart the server disabling its autostart with the system and we still have the same problem. :huh:

I really don't know what to do to correct this problem... any idea? :unsure:

[homecomputeraid]

You say your Server has a Firewall. Do you mean that it's an ISA Server? Any chance you can get a DSL Firewall instead of a DSL Router, and go straight to that? What kind of Server is it, meaning what Hardware?

Sorry to answer your question with more questions, but I'm not sure how to help until I know more about your environment.

Sincerely,

[Lancelot69fr]

Well It's a personal firewall: Kerio. It works fine I think for what I have to protect, the box configured as a server is a pc amd xp 1700+ with 512MB SDRAM with an UDMA133 40GB HDD.

And I don't think I can have something else than the DSL router from my ISP.

I hope this will answer your auestions.

Thanks for helping.

[homecomputeraid]

Thanks Lancelot,

The Server is running Windows 2000 Server?

I'm looking into configuring Windows 2000 Server as a Router.

Please make sure you've properly configured your server to be a router as outlined in this Article.

Remember that you'll have to set your inside NIC to give out DHCP addresses and configure your DHCP Server to give out DNS Servers.

Can you provide a printout of your IP Configuration? You go to Start, Run, type cmd, and hit Enter. In the Command Window, type ipconfig /all and copy and paste the output to your response to this post. Please do this for the server and one inside PC.

Sincerely,

[Lancelot69fr]

At first everything was configured like your article is saying, but I had trouble configuring my firewall software (which is running on the same box) for the LAN boxes since DHCP doesn't assign addresses with the same subnet mask everytime.

So I defined myself LAN boxes IP addresses with a static IP following this pattern:

192.168.0.0

255.255.255.0

Since the NIC handling the LAN from the Gateway is:

192.168.0.1

255.255.255.0

And I have a static IP my ISP assigned for the other NIC handling WAN.

But everything works this way... Except for this timeout problem which occurs enough often to be really annoying.

[homecomputeraid]

If you're using an IP of 192.168.0.0, that won't work. 192.168.0.0 is the address of your network and cannot be assigned to a host.

To avoid conflicts, you might assign the host IP's starting with 192.168.0.10 then go to 192.168.0.11, .12, etc.

Also, make sure you don't have 192.168.0.x, 255.255.255.0 assigned to both NIC's.

[Lancelot69fr]

I said 192.168.0.0 is a pattern, I gave the subnet mask to show you the last byte was changing depending on the machine.

And like I said everything works fine... the network configuration is ok (I think).

I'd bet on the windows server for the timeout problem, but I don't know why!!??

[homecomputeraid]

I don't know how to help you until you provide the information I asked for. If you could make a quick Visio or drawing, it would clarify. I have to know what network iss assigned to both NIC's on the gateway, what IP's on your router, and what IP's are on the machines inside the gateway. I have to know the IP Scheme on both networks. Please provide actual IP's from each machine instead of IP ranges.

[Lancelot69fr]

Thank you for your help Homecomputeraid, but I'm a computer tech too and I keep telling you this is a system performance issue nothing to do with the network. And to tell you the truth I don't trust Microsoft technologies enough to give away my ip addresses on the web. Let's just drop it. I'll go to another forum.

Thank you anyway for your time.

[homecomputeraid]

Sorry I was unable to help Lancelot. I always start with the basics. I have no crystal ball into your network, or the performance issue. Revealing an internal IP scheme if you're using a private address space won't help a hacker much if you have a decent firewall.

I have to have some visualization of a network in a scanario like this before I can be of much assistance. It sounds like a possible name resolution/DNS issue which is related to how your TCP/IP scheme is set up.

Hope you find the answer.

Sincerely,

[homecomputeraid]

Lancelot, one thing you can try from the PC's that are having trouble getting to the Internet is pinging by name, then pinging by IP Address. For example, try pinging www.cisco.com and seeing if you get a response, then try pinging 198.133.219.25. If you get a response from the IP Address, but not the name, I'd definitely look closely at your DNS setup.

Sincerely,

[nellie2]

Hello Lancelot69fr

I won't say that I know what you and HC are talking about, it's nice to see two professionals get together and bounce ideas around though. :)

I do know that when I'm troubleshooting, especially from a distance, that I like to eliminate the obvious and then take it from there.

If you don't want to publish IP's on the forum (quite sensible if you ask me) then you can always use the Private Message facility to PM the info to HC.

If you do manage to resolve your issue somewhere else could you let us know the outcome?