Firewall settings for accessing XP workgroup

[Chuck White]

Trusting the firewall in my router long enough to run a test, I find that I can access the printer and shared folders on my wife's XP desktop machine... as long as I turn off the firewall on my FC4 laptop (Desktop>System Settings>Security Level). I don't see any obvious way to 'trust' local IP addresses. How do I set up my firewall so that I can access shared folders and printers on an XP workgroup?

Thanks!

Chuck

[friez]

it's most likely blocking ports for netbios and some other ports (i don't know what they are off the top of my head)

u should be able to open port by adding (123.456.7890:port)where 123.4... is the local ip address for your wifes pc(note i'm not sure if it is ip first or port first)

edit if you have firestarter install there is a sections where allows you to congfigure this better

and that faces is : Pwithout the space

[friez]

you may also want to try samba look here for help with that http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=61412

[Chuck White]

Thanks for your time, but I haven't been able to make it work. As far as I can tell, the dialogue box drops all IP numbers after the first period and Port must take a value of tcp or udp. Again, the connections work as long as I drop the firewall. They don't work when I try to open up to selected tcp/udp addresses.Anybody got a modification or a different suggestion?

Thanks.

Chuck

[kg4cbk]

Typically you need to open up ports 137 and 138 UDP and 139 and 445 TCP to allow samba to work correctly.

If you are trying to access a printer on a windows system I recommend you enable lpr printing on the windows system and use that to allow the linux system access. Much easier to setup than using a samba connection for printers.

Under windows 2000 you go to control panel select network and dial up then in the advanced menu select Optional Nework components. In that window check mark Other network file and printer services.

This will enable lpr services on the windows machine. Then in the linux system when you setup the print queue select the network lpr service and input the IP address of the windows system and the queue name of the printer. No samba password to worry with. And it has been much more reliable than windows print sharing ever was.

[Chuck White]

Thanks for your time but no joy yet. The ports you suggested were translated by Security Level as: netbios-ns:udp, netbios-dgm:udp, netbios-ssn:tcp, and microsoft-ds:tcp. I do reboot between setting firewall parameters. I try to access the XP machine using file browser. A window is opened for the XP server but I get a message saying "The folder contents can not be displayed." When the firewall is turned off, I can access the folder fine. Any more suggestions? I mean... other than just leaving the firewall off.

Chuck

[Chuck White]

RESOLVED: I should have scrolled a couple of forums down and looked in the security forum before I posted this. As recommended in the sticky there, the easy answer is to replace the default firewall with Firestarter. It's available on the FC4 extras CDs or you can download it with:
yum install firestarter.i386

Then go to Applications>System Tools>Firestarter and run the Druid. Firestarter blocks the XP workgroup the first time you connect but you can click on the block notice to allow for future use.

[friez]

i mention firestater in post #2 :)