Hi there, I am having some general network issues with a new install of server that are driving me crackers. The server has two NIC's, one is connected to the internet, the second is connected to a small LAN. The connections pick up fine, and upon sharing the internet connection, the LAN NIC gets set to the usual 192.168.0.1 malarkey. However, the server cannot browse the LAN network - when you try it says network discovery and file sharing are off, would you like to change this. Following through you are then offered the usual, make this connection private, or turn on features for public networks. If you select make connection private then the internet connection is made private, and you can correctly browse the LAN (?!). Obviously I don't want the internet connection to be made private, nor force sharing on for public connections. Bizarrely I seem to only be able to access information through the LAN NIC if I set the Internet NIC settings to be less secure. . . . I have checked the NIC priority list, and the LAN comes first. I can directly address the machines on the LAN from the server by entering their names - but discovery does not work, it simply complains its not enabled do I want to set it yada yada. The LAN NIC is set to a private network. This is picked up as an unidentified network, and initially sets to public, but i have changed the group policy to change unidentifieds to private instead of public. On a strange related note, the RDP server has stopped listening - and other computers on the LAN cannot RDP to the server. I have checked the listening ports, and 3389 isnt in there. The RDP service is running, is enabled against the right NIC ( even when enabled against all it still fails to work ) , and was for a time working. But no listening network port. Annoyingly the rest of the LAN can RDP amongst themselves, just the server that is borked. The other computers on the network can use the server's shared internet connection, see all the other computers on the network except for the presence of the server, which remains hidden. It does not show up in explorer, cannot be directly addressed or pinged - with all firewalls down on client and server. I have tried - just for the hell of it - switching the network cables around on the server and reconfiguring so that the internet comes in on a different NIC, but this has changed nothing. Other machines on the LAN are mostly windows 7, with the odd OSX and a few XP's. This is a fresh build of server, there are zero bits of software installed, or strange things configured. I am stuck as to what to do to resolve things. . . . .

There is something odd going on here. You should have separate firewall profiles for the two networks. You should be able to run with the Internet-connected NIC public and the LAN-connected NIC private. Is the default gateway in the LAN NIC blank (it should be)? No domain set up? Network discovery won't help the XP machines. They need to use the computer browser service. Is Netbios over TCP enabled on the LAN NIC (and disabled on the public NIC) of the multihomed server? Bill

Default gateway in the LAN NIC is indeed blank, and no domain is set, I changed nothing from its automatic setup. I had already checked that Netbios over TCP/IP was there just in case, and it was, so not that either. The Remote Desktop issue has gone away with SP2 having been applied. Odd. It originally worked, and at some point between updates, RDP borked, only to be fixed once SP2 had been applied. Uh huh. Nevertheless the Sharing and Discovery problem persists. To use the LAN NIC, it keeps wanting to drop the Internet NIC. Once its done that it works as normal. Its almost as if it wants to route everything through the Internet NIC first, then it goes and looks at the LAN NIC. I have kinda given up on it, and put it down to the weirdness of something going on with the server - although its been many years since I have had any trouble with network configs. I can live without sharing and discovery and get round it, but its a pain it doesn't work. Something else I noticed was odd - after getting nowhere with the settings, I have tried manually setting up the firewall ports and whatnot - if I remove public from the profiles list for a given rule, then that functionality stops working across the LAN. Setting the private profile seems to do absolutely diddly squat for me. Other Windows 7 based machines in the LAN have no such oddities going on. Just the Server 2k8 machine. grrr. I dont know whether its relevant - given I have switched cables around on the NIC and got the same results it shouldn't be, but the NICs in question are an onboard Realtek PCIe GB ethernet, and a PCI Intel Pro/1000 GT. Edit : After another couple of fruitless hours turning things on and off I have got nowhere. However. If I go into the network connections and DISABLE the internet connection, then suddenly, everything works as it should sharing and discovery wise. Other computers can see the server, and the server can browse the LAN without any whinging. Immediately going back to network connections and re-enabling the internet connection then breaks the sharing and discovery once again. So it can work. Just not with two NICs active at once, one being an internet connection. Again I can only think that the server is for some reason wanting to bounce across the internet and back again to browse the LAN, as bizarre as that is. Any ideas ??

Further down the spiral. This gets better and better. Having initially set the Internet NIC to ICS, I moved on to needing port forwarding and the like, so removed ICS, and installed RRAS role for the server. Problem is, the whole connectivity issue is stopping this from working. If I disable the internet NIC everything works as it should, enable it - stops working. After playing around with configurations and hitting the same roadblocks I decided to go back to ICS, as at least that was successfully sharing the internet connection to the LAN clients. Removed RRAS. But now, ICS refuses to enable, complaining that RRAS is still present. Even though its been removed. Awesome. So now I have not only a snarky server that refuses to play well on the LAN, but now also a borked internet connection that can't be accessed by the LAN clients. The server has become pretty much a fancy paper weight. I havent had this much network excitement since the days of ipx. Edit : The ICS reinstallation problem is I suspect something to do with ICS making a simplistic check that the routing and remote access service is present - regardless of whether its running or not. Manually deleting the service SC DELETE RemoteAccess fixes the problem, ICS can be reapplied, the clients get their internet access back. Poor in my opinion. Removing the RRAS role is the old chestnut ( I thought we had moved past these kind of problems ) of it not *actually* tidying up after itself very well, not uninstalling everything it installed, which then interferes with other stuff. Huzzah. Not to mention causing OS bloat in the form of messy files left from unwanted installs. Grrrrrreat.