problems with filesharing, webserver access, SSH

[nino]

I am trying to access my G4 Mac (running 10.2.3) at work from my G4 iMac (also on 10.2.3) at home, via 56K modem. I can't do this directly via SSH, or the "Connect to server" route, nor can I access the webserver folders on the work computer. I can, however, do all these things to get to my iMac at home from my G4 at work. Also, I can access my work computer from other Macs on the LAN at work, and I can SSH from the iMac at home into a unix server at work and from there SSH into my own Mac at work. As far as I can tell, the firewall on the work computer is disabled (although all my problems seemed to start when I enabled the firewall for the first time a few weeks ago).

My home computer gets a dynamic IP address. I'm wondering, is this the cause of the problem? Have also tried getting at the work Mac's webserver pages from a PC, also from a dynamic IP address, and also failed.

Desperate to get this sorted out before semester starts. Suggestions?:confused:

[houchin]

This really smells like firewall problems, and if I had to take a guess I'd guess that the firewall on your work computer is still enabled.

Did this all work before you played with the firewall a few weeks ago? What firewall are you using. Are you certain your company doesn't have a separate firewall that's blocking connections except to specific systems they've exposed?

I know that it's possible to configure ipfw to block connections from the internet at large but to allow connections from your local network (NetBarrrier X makes this very easy).

[nino]

I'm assured there is no firewall isolating the lan at work from the outside world. The firewall on my computer is only the built-in one that comes with OS 10.2.3. Things did work the way I wanted them to up until I turned this firewall on a few weeks back.

[Jadey]

houchin is right, you've got it blocked with your firewall. To fix: System Preferences -> Sharing -> Firewall tab. Under the Allow section, check off what you want to be able to access from your office. "Remote Login -SSH" for SSH, "Personal File Sharing" for Connect to Server, "Personal Web Sharing" for http.

[nino]

Have tried the above. Also tried enabling everything and switching the firewall off from the System Preferences panel. Doesn't work, can still only get access to my mac from computers on the same LAN. Problem seems to be specific to my mac running OS X...system 9 webserver works OK.

[hayne]

Nino: your last response was unclear - do you have the firewall disabled or not?
(You should disable the firewall until you get things working, then enable it while adding rules to allow things to stay working.)

Just to check that the firewall is in fact disabled, please show us the result of running the following command in Terminal:

sudo ipfw list

[nino]

Thank you. I've been wondering how to check whether the firewall is actually doing what is intended.


sudo ipfw list response is:

allow ip from any to any


I suppose this means the firewall is disabled?

[hayne]

Yes - "allow ip from any to any" as the sole response from 'ipfw list' means that the firewall is not blocking any packets at all.

So, it doesn't seem likely that your home Mac is stopping the network operations.
What about your Mac at work? Does it have the firewall enabled?

Give us details about exactly what network operations you have been trying.
Can you 'ping' the Mac at work from home?
What about 'traceroute' ?
(These are operations you can do from Terminal but also by using the Network Utility app.)

[nino]

Thanks heaps to those who sent suggestions to solve my problem. Alas, it turned out the problem had nothing to do with the macs. My organisation had secretly put up its own firewall at the same time I started fooling around with the OS X firewall, and that got me confused.

My humble apologies for wasting your time!