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Configuring ICS

I've been looking at this for hours now. Please help :-)

Scenario:

Have new 3G dongle which doesn't work with the router I have (it's a 3G router but not compatible with this dongle).

Thought I'd get by for now by plugging the dongle into my PC (both "always on"), and then reconfiguring the local network and the router so the router does nothing more than act as a "pass through" or access point.

- USB 3G Modem plugged into PC, PC connected to internet via 3G modem, works fine
- Above declares itself as "Remote NDIS based internet sharing Device 2" - that's set to shared (sharing tab - sharing enabled, "allow others to control..." disabled as it's "always on")
- Router reconfigured so it is 192.168.0.254 (otherwise it would clash with the PC)
- PC connected to router via ethernet, LAN connection has fixed IP 192.168.0.1 *
- Laptop connected to router via WiFi, laptop wireless connection has fixed IP 192.168.0.4, default gateway 192.168.0.1, DNS servers set (to known good ones)
-Router has DHCP disabled
- All masks set to 255.255.255.0

Laptop can ping PC. It cannot however get any further - no internet connection. Pinging an Internet IP on the laptop that I can ping fine on the PC:

"Request timed out" or "Reply from 192.168.0.4: Destination host unreachable" (randomly) NB .04 is the laptop itself

Not a DNS issue, nothing works, cannot ping an internet IP address, shows yellow ! icon - No internet connectivity

The problem isn't Windows Firewall. Nor is it a "state after changes" thing, have tried resetting all the connections.

The wireless card in the laptop works fine. Or at least it did on Monday when I last used it.

Tracert (internet IP) gets as far as PC then all the subsequent hops die.

Question: Why can't the laptop reach the Internet?

* For some reason when you enable ICS for the dongle connection the LAN IP sets itself to 192.168.137.1 which I then changed to 192.168.0.1
 
The amount of problems I've had with DHCP when it's disabled, specifically on Windows Vista/7 and 8 machines, have been colossal.

I tend to find that Windows now expects DHCP and so when you check the admin event log you'll probably see this producing a vicious circle of silly decision by the OS. It’s because of all those new bits of automation that are supposed to make your life easier but not if you're a network admin :).

It could also be an issue of authorisation within your ICS profile. You need to make sure that everything is correctly set to share and exchange information openly and that you’re using the right “Home” or “Public” network profile on the computers. Broadly I need all this automation annoying. Back in XP it was easy because the OS didn’t try to do everything for you.

IMO you might be better off buying one of those mini-PC’s and setting up a domain network with it as the server but that’s a bit extreme. Anyway it’s difficult to answer this without being in front of your PC but do check the event logs and you can usually narrow down the problem from the first errors after boot.

Also make sure you’ve got no software that messes with network settings. If you have an iPhone or iPod for example then that installs something annoying alongside iTunes that messes up network settings / DHCP and I’m not quite sure why. Damn I’ve forgotten what it’s called.. R.. something maybe.
 
Thanks Mark - will check those out. Far too hot a day to be sitting here doing this :)

Given that the laptop can reach the PC, this makes me think the problem is at the PC end.

A thought struck - the dongle installs as "Remote NDIS based internet sharing Device" which declares an IP of 192.168.2.100 so it's on a different net to the LAN card.

That is not in itself an issue - of course it would be on a different net - however I wonder if there's some NAT going on there (192.168.2.100 is the 3G card itself, not the internet IP) and ICS cannot bridge that.

For now, off out to the pub... on the radio, Bill Withers. Well, wouldn't you in this sunshine.
 
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From what I've read... (And I admit I skimmed a bit due to having exams)
It seems like the issue is you can't get the 2 networks to talk to each other.
The 192.168.0.0/24 and the 192.168.2.0/24 (going from the last post you made)

It seems like you need to do a bit of routing.

Try having a look here and see if it helps any.

DHCP shouldn't be an issue as long as it's not on the internet gateway network.

Hope this helps.
 
It could be the subnet like EO has said, when you do a tracert to a IP where does it stop at?

I would still try 255.255.0.0, anything on the 198.162.X.X should be private anyways so it shouldn't cause any problems.
 
Thanks... I still can't get this to work.

Interestingly, traceroutes to an internet IP from the laptop die at the PC. All the remaining hops time out.

However I'd have expected "Destination host unreachable". This may well be a clue.

I did come across this:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/mo...-huawei-e3256-router-enquiry-for-sharing.html

I think the last post is the answer. I had begun to think this - that there's some "double NAT" going on so this particular modem's internet connection is impossible to share with ICS.

I can however buy a router to replace the dongle, so I think I'll go for that.
 
Probably the best bet. I often find myself wishing that a modem would just be a modem and if it's going to do something different from that then to please tell me about it in the manual (not that I ever read the manual but it's all about principle) :). Too many increasingly complicated network devices, all trying to do their own thing, can be very tricky.
 
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I'm really rust with ICS - haven't used it since when I was with AOL when I had to run aol software in a VM as they screwed up my connection.

However, wouldn't you need to configure the PCs sharing the connection to use the 3G modem's local IP address as the gateway address, rather than the IP address of the host PC's LAN adaptor.


EDIT sorry forget that, I'm wrong of course as your host PC should be acting as a DHCP server, and enabling ICS will change the LAN address

I guess you could try a packet sniffer to see what's happening to your traffic ie ethereal -> www.wireshark.org
 
Last edited:
I did find a solution to this in the end.

For the time being I bought a cheap router, which is the TP-Link TL-MR3420 which is said to be compatible with the new E3256 dongle while I take stock of the new speeds and test out signal strength etc - looking to get a new antenna and a more capable router setup.

For the benefit of anyone searching the net as I was to find a compatible router:

The TP-Link one *does* work with the E3256 with one curious anomaly - you have to plug the dongle into the router directly or with only an extremely short USB cable.

I am guessing this has something to do with USB power levels. If you use even a 1m cable, the router will repeatedly drop and renegotiate the connection to the modem.

I have seen a few asking the question on the ThinkBroadband website so in the event that they do a search, they might find this answer useful.

Categorically, I believe, you cannot use ICS with the E3256 dongle because it is itself its own router with a private IP - the Internet IP is not exposed to the host PC - and you cannot configure port forwarding on the modem to get it to comply. So you can share the dongle connection, but you cannot share the internet connection behind it.
 
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