[Help] - XP network (workgroup) traffic problems

[clh333]

I am working for a company that deploys about a dozen workstations in a workgroup (peer-to-peer network). The workstations run Win XP. We have a DSL Internet connection, and a Cisco router that serves as the DHCP controller. The DNS is outside our firewall.

We employ one software application that users access via our LAN - a customer service database application. In order for the application to succeed we are required to map a drive on the "server", i.e. the machine that is running the application and maintaining the tables. This server is not a Domain Controller - we have none, and we are not running Active Directory.

We are experiencing connectivity issues with this application: we are unable to establish our full complement of licensed connections (11) and on occasion are also unable to open / view the mapped drive from a particular machine.

This has led me to suspect the problem is with the LAN. My research so far has suggested that networking protocols, and perhaps Printer and File Sharing protocols are at the root of the problem. I am able to ping the application server, even at a time that I am unable to connect to the mapped drive. On the other hand, when I ran arp from a command shell, and with four successive invocations of the command "arp -a" I received three different sets of IP and MAC addresses, one list of about six IP addresses, one list of one address, and two lists of the same two addresses.

It seems that something is amiss, but I don't know how to diagnose from here. Any suggestions? Thanks. CLH

Title Edited - Please follow new posting rules from now on.

--Zxian

Edited December 15, 2005 by Zxian

[cluberti]

Perhaps getting a netmon trace at each end of the connection when the issue is occuring (from client and server), and seeing if anything is amiss. Is the server running DNS or WINS services? Having a WINS server in a workgroup environment will have a noticeable impact on workgroup lookups and reduce browser elections (which can also cause problems if the workstations are fighting for master browser status).

[Ghostrider]

I am working for a company that deploys about a dozen workstations in a workgroup (peer-to-peer network). The workstations run Win XP. We have a DSL Internet connection, and a Cisco router that serves as the DHCP controller. The DNS is outside our firewall.

We employ one software application that users access via our LAN - a customer service database application. In order for the application to succeed we are required to map a drive on the "server", i.e. the machine that is running the application and maintaining the tables. This server is not a Domain Controller - we have none, and we are not running Active Directory.

We are experiencing connectivity issues with this application: we are unable to establish our full complement of licensed connections (11) and on occasion are also unable to open / view the mapped drive from a particular machine.

<snipped>

I noticed you said Server but running in a Peer to Peer config, are you running a true server or using XP Pro as a fileserver, if so then you can only have 10 network connections and therefore will need true server, the other problem might relate to true server being setup for per server licensing which mean total connections, not users.. Just a thought...!

[fizban2]

Ghostrider is right,

if you are just connecting to an XP Pro machine that hosts your Application, you will never be able to use all 11 licenses, since only 10 conncurrent connections can be made to that machine at the same time.This is a limit that is imposed by microsoft.

[clh333]

Thanks to all who responded with suggestions.

Yes we are running XP as our application "server" OS. I had heard of the 10 connection limit in XP but was unable to find documentation in support of this from Microsoft. Some discussions said the limit was "10 sockets" and was imposed as a security measure to prevent runaway worm propagation.

We do not have a WINS server and our DNS server apparently is remote. I'll try clearing that up and see what effect it has. I know that without a master controller the election method is used, and that can't be as effective as a designated hosts lookup.

We are small enough that for now we could get by with fixed IP addresses.

CLH

[cluberti]

I made the assumption that you had a real server OS installed, so my mistake. Everyone here is correct - there is a hard limit imposed on XP Pro in that you cannot have more than 10 concurrent connections to it at any one time.

You may be wise to purchase a server with SBS 2003 on it for your workgroup - it's an expense, but it'll alleviate much of the problems you are seeing, whilst allowing for future growth should that be necessary.