Topic: problem regarding dialup connection on demand

[Richter Belmont]

I am using SMEServer v5.5 as gateaway using simple dialup connection set as "Long (disconnect after 20mins)"

although it is working fine most of the time but recently I come to realise it sometimes stay connected even several hours after I stop accessing the net.

and sometimes it connects to the net automatically even when I am not trying to access the net at all.


so.... could someone fill me up what is wrong with it and I do I go fixing it, if there is a solution to it.

btw I switched off all my Windows terminal to make sure there are no Windows applications doing routine update stuff, I know there is few annoying Windows crap does that.  However result was still the same, it stay connected (sometimes) after 20mins and dial automatically without using it

[Paulb]

Hi there,
I spotted this problem some while ago on a cisco router, i found that by denying ports 137 138 and i think 139 on my ethernet i/f cured the problem, these are  various netbios comms ports ( i think) used by windows protocols, Unfortunately I,m not sure how to alter ipchains (or whatever) to cure this on my esmith server.

Also  by having your dialler set for long, there is a greater opportunity for communication to take place with the internet which i believe will now reset the dialler to stay up again for an extended period of inactivity, if you set your periods to 'short' and see if the dialler calls out every couple of minutes that might prove the windows network as the problem, I've noticed a lot of network chat even with just a few computers doing basically nothing in a workgroup environment and it is this that brings up the dialler.

Hope this helps

[Richter Belmont]

Thank you very much for your input Paul

I appreciate it a lot.

I was not able to pin point a cause of the problem, however, I was able overcome it by setting periods to 'short'.  As you mentioned something similar yourself, setting periods to 'long' leads to infinite extension of that 20mins to another.

While I was testing it, I make sured that all windows terminals are switch off so that they do not make any unauthorized request to networks outside LAN.  The outcome varied, sometime worked, sometime didn't.  Eventually I gave up and set periods to 'short' and that seems to took care of the problem.  Who knows maybe there was old HTTP request kept in a connection pool waiting for its timeout.  As you know those keep alive duration varies and who knows Microsoft might use their own keep alive mechanism (which they do in IE)

once again, thanks for your input

p.s. I apologize for delay in reply on this message, I was not checking my mail lately