Configuring SMC Barricade for pcAnywhere

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.security.firewalls (More info?)

Using pcAnywhere with LinkSys was a breeze, but using it with an SMC
Barricade router is proving to be a nightmare. (Have these SMC dudes
ever heard the term "user friendly")?

I have an SMC7004ABR router that works fine for the most part EXCEPT I
cannot for the life of me figure out how to configure it to allow a
pcAnywhere remote client (running on my notebook) to access my home
desktop (where the router resides).

Can anyone offer A-B-C, step-by-step instructions for how to do that?
SMC tech support so far has been useless (the first guy I talked to
just told me "you can't acces your computer remotely"), and the posts
I have read here on the subject seems equally misinformed or vague.

I someone has actually SUCEEDED in getting pcAnywhere to work with a
Barricade router, please share the secret knowledge with the rest of
us. No one will be more interested than SMC, I'm sure.



Thanks,
cliff

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.security.firewalls (More info?)

On 23 May 2004 15:32:52 -0700, saxon987@yahoo.com (Clifford535) wrote:

>I have an SMC7004ABR router that works fine for the most part EXCEPT I
>cannot for the life of me figure out how to configure it to allow a
>pcAnywhere remote client (running on my notebook) to access my home
>desktop (where the router resides).
>
>Can anyone offer A-B-C, step-by-step instructions for how to do that?
>SMC tech support so far has been useless (the first guy I talked to
>just told me "you can't acces your computer remotely"), and the posts
>I have read here on the subject seems equally misinformed or vague.

You might want to take a look at this. What you need to do is forward
the port to your machine from outside. Which ports depends on the
version of PC Anywhere.
http://www.nthelp.com/NT6/pcanywhere_ip_port_usage.htm

FWIW, this likely opens you up to a pretty gaping security hole. I
wouldn't want to open extra inbound ports through my firewall except
temporarily. And I have never had the sasser worm here. Never
anything. I only have open what I absolutely need.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.security.firewalls (More info?)

PS. After a little more trial and error, I finally got it working!
What really seems to have done the trick was this:

I had been using a PCA (pcAnywhere) host that I had created when I was
using the LinkSys router. Like I said in the first post, I had no
trouble gaining access with a PCA remote when using the LinkSys, so I
was crediting LinkSys with a better design.

But then it I decided to create a new PCA host. Lo and behold, my
remote PCA client was now able to get through the Barricade router and
operate normally! And as an added twist, after running the new host
for awhile, I tried running the old one (which I had saved) and it was
working too (after not working for hours)!

I have no idea what happened (perhaps PCA does a fresh "read" of the
network when a new host is created), but if you are having trouble
like I was, it's worth a try. I was about to give up on the
Barricade; but now all is cool (especially the fail-over dial-up
feature...which is why I bought the Barricade in the first place).

SMC could STILL use a lot of improvement in terms of user
friendliness. After all, not everybody is a network engineer; and at
this stage of the game in computer technology, you shouldn't have to
be.

cliff

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.security.firewalls (More info?)

On 23 May 2004 23:45:26 -0700, saxon987@yahoo.com (Clifford535) wrote:

>
>SMC could STILL use a lot of improvement in terms of user
>friendliness. After all, not everybody is a network engineer; and at
>this stage of the game in computer technology, you shouldn't have to
>be.
Glad you got it working. I think the SMC products have a stronger
firewall than the NAT firewall in the linksys stuff. I have both here
but I haven't played with the SMC yet. Doesn't the SMC have some SPI
implementation?

But you're right, for ease of use Linksys is king. Very nice UI. I
have had my BEFSR41 since they came out, I have servers here, all
sorts of stuff behind that Linksys. Each new flash for it has fixed
more and more problems, often problems I didn't know I had!

I guess I should drag out the SMC and compare.

I have had a Dlink and a Hawking too. The Dlink was a little weird in
the user interface area. Not that it didn't work, it was just a lot
more obscure than the Linksys. The Linksys was obvious.

The Hawking was the first small DSL router available when I bought it,
that worked OK too. I haven't seen their newer products.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.security.firewalls (More info?)

Steevo@my-deja.com wrote:
> On 23 May 2004 15:32:52 -0700, saxon987@yahoo.com (Clifford535) wrote:
>
>
>>I have an SMC7004ABR router that works fine for the most part EXCEPT I
>>cannot for the life of me figure out how to configure it to allow a
>>pcAnywhere remote client (running on my notebook) to access my home
>>desktop (where the router resides).
>>
>>Can anyone offer A-B-C, step-by-step instructions for how to do that?
>>SMC tech support so far has been useless (the first guy I talked to
>>just told me "you can't acces your computer remotely"), and the posts
>>I have read here on the subject seems equally misinformed or vague.
>
>
> You might want to take a look at this. What you need to do is forward
> the port to your machine from outside. Which ports depends on the
> version of PC Anywhere.
> http://www.nthelp.com/NT6/pcanywhere_ip_port_usage.htm
>
> FWIW, this likely opens you up to a pretty gaping security hole. I
> wouldn't want to open extra inbound ports through my firewall except
> temporarily. And I have never had the sasser worm here. Never
> anything. I only have open what I absolutely need.
I have a related problem with a SMC 7004FW.
I have 2 of these connected via the inet as a VPN (IPSEC) so that I can
run a machine at the office with PCanywhere (ver 10)
I have the SPI firewall enabled on both.
I have had weirdness in that I was not able to originally ping a local
machine in the house, or the machine at the office, then I disabled the
firewall at home, (only NAT active) and was able to ping local home and
the office machine. I reenabled the fire wall and
was still able to ping both machines. I reset the router with fw enabled
and was able to ping the office with 50% packet loss, then on second
try, 0% packet loss (97ms ping).
I was originally not able to connect to a pcaw host at the home lan if
both were plugged into the 7004fw router. With both machines plugged
into a hub (and hub into router), I was able to connect to a home machine.
Then without changing anything else but moving the machines back to the
router jacks (from the hub) I could now connect to the home pcaw host
(where I could not before.
So it would seem the 7004fw is learning somehow.
My main question is , with a router to router vpn, what do I need to do
to connect to my remote (office ) pcaw host. Seems like a bad idea to do
port fwd if that also opens ports to the outside world.
gr

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.security.firewalls (More info?)

On Tue, 25 May 2004 02:18:44 GMT, gr <greif1nospam@rochester.rr.com>
wrote:
>I have a related problem with a SMC 7004FW.
>I have 2 of these connected via the inet as a VPN (IPSEC) so that I can
>run a machine at the office with PCanywhere (ver 10)
>I have the SPI firewall enabled on both.
>I have had weirdness in that I was not able to originally ping a local
>machine in the house, or the machine at the office, then I disabled the
>firewall at home, (only NAT active) and was able to ping local home and
>the office machine.
Hopefully someone who knows a lot more about stateful packet
inspection than I do will jump in, but I think that sounds about
right. A ping is one of the things an SPI firewall protects your
network from. Ping of death, DOS attacks, that sort of stuff. But
not responding to ping doesn't make the tunnel not work. Did it
eventually work?

> I reenabled the fire wall and
>was still able to ping both machines. I reset the router with fw enabled
>and was able to ping the office with 50% packet loss, then on second
>try, 0% packet loss (97ms ping).
>I was originally not able to connect to a pcaw host at the home lan if
>both were plugged into the 7004fw router. With both machines plugged
>into a hub (and hub into router), I was able to connect to a home machine.
>Then without changing anything else but moving the machines back to the
>router jacks (from the hub) I could now connect to the home pcaw host
>(where I could not before.
>So it would seem the 7004fw is learning somehow.
Yep. I think that's what is supposed to happen.

>My main question is , with a router to router vpn, what do I need to do
>to connect to my remote (office ) pcaw host.
I am in over my head here. One of you guys who actually knows about
this stuff, jump in and elucidate for us!

> Seems like a bad idea to do
>port fwd if that also opens ports to the outside world.
It could be, but maybe not. If your other security is carefully
configured it might not matter. Every web/FTP/mail server in the world
is exposed to the entire internet, mostly. The seem to work OK.
Mostly. But for your home network if you only open what you need you
will not have to worry, at least as much. I believe in minimizing
things.