Good lord.. WHS OOBE is shit | The Coffeehouse

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

I'm trying to set up my Windows Homeserver (Acer AspireHome H340)... and the out-of-the-box experience is horrific...

I've spent 90 minutes on it already... The connector software seems to found "aspirehome" (the DHCP name) but when trying to go on to the next step... some sort of percentage progess... It freezes at 0%

OK... After 90 minutes I think I figure it out...

My router says "aspirehome" is at 192.168.2.2

but when I ping "aspirehome" it says...

> Pinging aspirehome.futurama [24.28.193.9]

"futurama" is my router domain name that gets tacked on...

I ran the trouble shooter software and it says something about Dynamic DNS... which I look in my router pages for... no avail...

I had to put an entry into "hosts" to force "aspirehome" to resolve to 192.168.2.2

And the connector software seems to be installing...

BUT... this is a piece of consumer hardware + software?

And what happen when I remove the hosts entry?

Wow! Amazing! Acer? MS? Who's to blame?

LeoDavidson

24.28.193.9 is probably your router's external IP address (I can ping it from here so it should be an external IP). Seems like when something on your LAN does a DNS lookup on another LAN machine it's being given the external IP, not the internal 192.168.1.x IP.

I'd look at whatever is running your LAN's DNS service. On my LAN that's the router but I'm not familiar with WHS and whether or not it runs a DNS server for the LAN.

AndyC

WHS doesn't provide DNS, that's entirely down to your router. And by the sounds of it you've got your router configured in an utterly b0rked way. It's extremely doubtful that it does that by default, so, person most likely to blame = Minh Tongue Out

dahat

Did you head on over to 24.28.193.9 to see where that leads you?

Looks like your ISP (Road Runner) is causing you this pain due to their hijacking DNS lookups... including local ones.

Unfortunately this is a problem we’ve seen before, often with ISPs who use OpenDNS or similar services which return a response for seemingly invalid requests... including local network ones.

Aside from the hosts option, we are working to improve this situation (too late for you I know, but is something that the OEM support knows about if you called them)... however it would be good if you were to call up your ISP and ask them why they are engaging in such local hijacking and ask that they stop.

stevo_
Human after all

In reply to dahat

#Jul 29th @ 10:11 PM

Pretty sure they probably didn't test well oobe scenarios where the DNS is fubar.. the system needs some way to orientate itself on the network, and if the DNS is giving it bizzare information you can expect it to play bizzare itself..

I'm guessing you've messed around with the DNS on your network?

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

In reply to LeoDavidson

#Jul 29th @ 9:31 PM

24.28.193.9 is probably your router's external IP address (I can ping it from here so it should be an external IP). Seems like when something on your LAN does a DNS lookup on another LAN machine it's being given the external IP, not the internal 192.168.1.x IP.

I don't know how the DNS process work, but I go to http://WhatIsMyIP.com and it reports my IP as 65.27.x.x ... I'm not sure where 24.28.x.x is coming from...

person most likely to blame = Minh

That's entirely possible

Did you head on over to 24.28.193.9 to see where that leads you?

Yes, but no web server at that end. When I TRACERT... it took over 30 hops and decided to give up. I don't think that's the WHS

Aside from the hosts option, we are working to improve this situation (too late for you I know, but is something that the OEM support knows about if you called them)...

So replacing my router won't help right?

An asides, I ran a WebDAV on my iPod touch to do wireless transfer of files to it... and I have no problem...

So this is a problem that can be resolved w/ software?

however it would be good if you were to call up your ISP and ask them why they are engaging in such local hijacking and ask that they stop.

Assuming the customer service person even know what I'm talking about... Is this something they can change for little ol me?

Oh, BTW, how do you enable a left-handed mouse for WHS console?

I "binged" for this... no results...

I Googled for this... first result...

It says "On RDC click start, control panel, mouse. Then click on reverse mouse functions."

I don't see a "start"... I don't see "RDC"... is this for an older version? How do I use my left-handed mouse?

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

In reply to Minh

#Jul 30th @ 4:32 AM

I've never tried changing the mouse settings, but wouldn't you simply be able to open a remote desktop connection to "server" or whatever you called the server and change the mouse settings in the control panel there?

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to Bas

#Jul 30th @ 5:45 AM

Yes, RDC is Remote Desktop Connection. So Minh fire that up and just remote into the box. Then off to control panel you go.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

Meanwhile, I wonder when WHS 2 is going to come out, and what it'll have. I could do with a completely revamped remote access website, myself. That thing is probably the most unreliable aspect of my WHS. Also, waking machines up and putting them back to sleep almost never works, though that may be a Windows thing rather than a WHS thing.

spivonious

Remember that, at a high level, WHS is just Server 2003 with a front-end. You don't have to use the connector software for everything.

As far as your problem with the IP...that's a strange one. I'd rummage through the router config pages to see if anything in there could be giving the wrong IP.

I agree with you about the web access. It doesn't seem to always work and even though my router is uPNP and WHS configured the ports correctly, the connector still warns me every time I log on (even though I told it not to warn me about remote access) that it couldn't verify everything worked.

Also, don't know if you're planning on it, but don't install the trial of Avast! Home Server edition. It runs great until the trial runs out. Then it won't let you uninstall it and it really borks the connector.

When my 120 day trial of WHS ran out, I just put Win 7 RC on the machine and pointed my desktop to backup to it. That coupled with the Homegroup functionality and I don't miss WHS at all.

figuerres
???

In reply to Minh

#Jul 30th @ 4:32 AM

Minh: is this a cable hookup? like timewarner / roadrunner or other like that??

generally they run a 2 network setup a "private" net and a "public" net and then you have a private local net like the 192.168.x

the private net is *normally* just that a non routed ip net that lets them manage the customers and connect them to the real internet.

if you see a different public ip and they do have the other block it's possible someone at the isp/cable headend messed up that side of the system... not for sure just might be.

harumscarum
out of memory

Have you tried kicking or shaking it?

Jimmy Fallon

In reply to harumscarum

#Jul 30th @ 6:54 AM

edit: *! Used the wrong C9 ID... AHHAHAHAHAHAH!

OK, here's the thing...

It looks like the connector installed OK for my Vista partition...

But the Windows 7 RC doesn't seem to use the HOSTS file? I tried editing it as a admin (have to turned off UAC -- there's some weird shims going on there)... But either Win7 no longer recognize HOSTS... or the real HOSTS isn't where I think it is... I was editing C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc

Have you tried kicking or shaking it?

Of course, right after I spit on it and insulted its mama HAHA!

Minh: is this a cable hookup? like timewarner / roadrunner or other like that??

Yes, it's roadrunner cable.

if you see a different public ip and they do have the other block it's possible someone at the isp/cable headend messed up that side of the system... not for sure just might be.

Yah, I do see a different IP when I visit WhatIsMyIP.com...

Yes, RDC is Remote Desktop Connection. So Minh fire that up and just remote into the box. Then off to control panel you go.

I will give this a shot when I'm home.

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

In reply to Jimmy Fallon

#Jul 30th @ 1:14 PM

Minh == Jimmy Fallon?

stevo_
Human after all

In reply to TommyCarlier

#Jul 30th @ 1:17 PM

This is madness!

littleguru
<3 Seattle

In reply to stevo_

#Jul 30th @ 1:21 PM

Haha. Minh having multiple sign-ins. This is FUN!

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

In reply to littleguru

#Jul 30th @ 8:10 PM

Haha! I was just having a little fun...

But seriously...

OK, so I found that Windows 7 does look at the HOSTS file... the problem is... say I define a test entry in my HOSTS file

TESTENTRY 192.168.2.3

but when I ping TESTENTRY, I get...

Pinging testentry.futurama [24.28.193.9] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 24.28.193.9: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=109
Reply from 24.28.193.9: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=109
Reply from 24.28.193.9: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=109
Reply from 24.28.193.9: bytes=32 time=26ms TTL=109

Ping statistics for 24.28.193.9:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 26ms, Maximum = 37ms, Average = 32ms

That's the wrong external IP...

Is it my router?

If I bought a WHS-approved router, would it fix this problem? I would think that a router should intercept the DNS call to return its own DHCP entry...

As of now, I have NO way to install the connector on Windows 7

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to Minh

#Jul 31st @ 2:49 PM

I have no idea if it's your router or your ISP, but something seriously screwed.

AndyC

In reply to Minh

#Jul 31st @ 2:49 PM

Minh said:

OK, so I found that Windows 7 does look at the HOSTS file... the problem is... say I define a test entry in my HOSTS file

TESTENTRY 192.168.2.3

but when I ping TESTENTRY, I get..

That's the wrong way round for the hosts file and it really ought to be a fully qualified DNS name. If I put:

192.163.2.3 testentry.futurama

in my hosts file on Windows 7 , it works fine.

blowdart
Peek-a-boo

In reply to Minh

#Jul 31st @ 2:49 PM

It does sound weird, something is appending a DNS suffix, somewhere.

You could edit the properties on your network connection on the laptop and tell it to append the suffix?

dahat

Did you head on over to 24.28.193.9 to see where that leads you?
Yes, but no web server at that end. When I TRACERT... it took over 30 hops and decided to give up. I don't think that's the WHS

Very strange... when I go there I am re-directed to http://ww23.rr.com/index.php?origURL=http://24.28.193.9/ which does look to be an ISP based missing URL hijacking/search page.

So replacing my router won't help right?

Unless this is an issue unique to your router... probably not. Which make and model are you using?

An asides, I ran a WebDAV on my iPod touch to do wireless transfer of files to it... and I have no problem...

May be unrelated until we know why this is failing in the first place.

So this is a problem that can be resolved w/ software?

Yes... by not relying on your ISP for DNS lookup with regards to items in the home.

however it would be good if you were to call up your ISP and ask them why they are engaging in such local hijacking and ask that they stop.

Assuming the customer service person even know what I'm talking about... Is this something they can change for little ol me?

They may not stop it for you... but ISPs like this need to be reminded that their attempts to be helpful have serious ramifications for home users that they never test for or consider.

OK, so I found that Windows 7 does look at the HOSTS file... the problem is... say I define a test entry in my HOSTS file

Try flushing your DNS cache with ipconfig /flushdns before pinging the test name again.

ManipUni
Proving QQ for 5 years!

Sorry if this is unhelpful and pointing out the blindingly obvious, but did you consider disconnecting your Internet connection and reseting everything to either prove or eliminate if that is the issue?

Mr. Arkadin

Minh, check out this link: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.online-services.roadrunner/browse_thread/thread/98123e2e3c35cbe7

dahat

In reply to Mr. Arkadin

#Aug 1st @ 9:06 AM

Good catch... and a slightly longer look at the web site that he should have been dumped to... there is even a link "Why Am I Here?" (which I missed the first time I was there) with a link to instructions on how to opt out.