Shared network connection snagged station

  • Thread starter Thread starter njem
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njem

I posted this earlier but don't see it so...

I have a bunch of stations and a router that gives dhcp and dns
settings. Someone brought in a laptop that had a shared wireless
connection. I don't know why such a connection would be shared in the
first place, but anyway. When a couple of the regular workstations
powered up they got their regular IP and and gateway settings from the
router but for some reason chose to try to use this laptop's shared
network connection as their internet link. Why in the world would it
choose to use this shared link when it has its own? I fixed it but it
really troubles me that just hooking up a laptop with an obscure
setting you wouldn't think to look for can throw stations across the
network for such a loop.

Thanks.
 
Hi
It is Not clear what the Laptop with Share Connection mean and how it was
connected to the Network.
The only thing that I can thing about is metrics. I.e. that the metrics
setting of the Network card is configured to prefer Wireless, and thus got
IPs from the Laptop ICS configuration (if that is what you meant by shared
connection ( http://www.ezlan.net/.metrics.html ).
Jack (MS, MVP-Networking).
 
It is Not clear what the Laptop with Share Connection mean and how it was
connected to the Network.
Click to expand...
Yes, I should have referred to it that way, ICS. The guest laptop has
both wireless and wired. We connected it by wire but its wireless was
on too and the wireless connected to our guest wireless (can get to
the internet but that's all). They must have used guest wireless
sometime in the past. For some reason its wireless connection had ICS
turned on.

But the odd thing is other stations, two of the regular desktops in
the office, when they were turned on decided to use the laptop's ICS
for internet even though normal access to internet through the lan was
available. They each set their dns address to be the laptop's IP.
These desktops have one net port and I doubt their metrics have ever
been changed from the default "auto", though I'll check tomorrow. But
even if they had some metric setting it seems metrics apply to
choosing ports WITHIN a system. I'm still not sure why one system
would prefer to use another's ICS for internet when it has its own
internet connection available. I would really like to sort this out as
it caused problems that day and could again.

Thanks
 
The only thing that I can thing about is metrics. I.e. that the metrics
setting of the Network card is configured to prefer Wireless, and thus got
IPs from the Laptop ICS configuration (if that is what you meant by shared
connection (http://www.ezlan.net/.metrics.html).
Click to expand...

Finally got to look at that laptop again and its metrics are set to
Auto. So why else would my desktops prefer to link to the laptop ICS
instead of the in-house router/server provided connection to the net?

Thanks,
Tom
 
njem said:
Yes, I should have referred to it that way, ICS. The guest laptop has
both wireless and wired. We connected it by wire but its wireless was
on too and the wireless connected to our guest wireless (can get to
the internet but that's all). They must have used guest wireless
sometime in the past. For some reason its wireless connection had ICS
turned on.

But the odd thing is other stations, two of the regular desktops in
the office, when they were turned on decided to use the laptop's ICS
for internet even though normal access to internet through the lan was
available. They each set their dns address to be the laptop's IP.
These desktops have one net port and I doubt their metrics have ever
been changed from the default "auto", though I'll check tomorrow. But
even if they had some metric setting it seems metrics apply to
choosing ports WITHIN a system. I'm still not sure why one system
would prefer to use another's ICS for internet when it has its own
internet connection available. I would really like to sort this out as
it caused problems that day and could again.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Without actual IP addresses, your description is really confusing.

Specifically, it doesn't make sense to say that the laptop connected to
your guest wireless (in which case the laptop's wireless NIC would have
an IP assigned by your guest wireless router) AND that the laptop is
acting as an ICS host (in which case its IP address would be 192.168.0.1).

This sentence also is not right: "We connected it by wire but its
wireless was on too and the wireless connected to our guest wireless
(can get to the internet but that's all)." What makes you think that
this laptop connected to the Internet via "wire" (presumably to your
router) and *also* by your "guest wireless" (same router? different
router?)?
 
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