Win 10 to Mint via Ethernet

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Rikkitic

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#268105 28-Feb-2020 11:37

I am trying to make a direct Ethernet connection between a Win 10 laptop and one running Mint so I can test some cables using LAN Speed Test. I have Mint set to Link Local and I have created a shared folder to write to. I have also tried to set the Windows IPv4 IP address to the one displayed by Mint IFCONFIG but I can't get windows to see the Linux computer. My networking skills are pretty limited and I also don't know much about Linux so I am kind of out of my depth here. I have been searching on-line but I can't figure out why the computers won't connect. I'm sure it is just something simple and obvious that I am missing but if anyone knows the secret I would be grateful for some help. Thanks in advance.

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#2428779 28-Feb-2020 12:23

Are you running Samba on Mint? Make sure it’s not running SMB1, the vulnerable version that MS has now disallowed.

sudo vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

min protocol = SMB2

(Or simplified)

protocol = SMB2

then restart the service

sudo systemctl restart smb.service

or

sudo systemctl restart smbd.service

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gehenna

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#2428821 28-Feb-2020 13:47

Crossover cable?

wellygary

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#2428839 28-Feb-2020 14:24

gehenna:

Crossover cable?

Any decent NIC these days should autodetect this... (shouldn't it?...)

To make them see each other without a DHCP server sunning on one or other of the machines you are going to have to set the IP ranges to be within the same subnet mask... this can be a bit of a dark art...

To be Honest the easiest thing to do is probably to just grab a old router and just run both machines off it

Rikkitic

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#2428845 28-Feb-2020 14:38

wellygary:

To be Honest the easiest thing to do is probably to just grab a old router and just run both machines off it

To be honest I haven't got a bloody clue what I am doing. Everything I try just sends me around in endless circles. Modern Mint may have a nice front end, but Linux in itself is an exasperatingly user-unfriendly can of worms. Everything you try takes you down another rabbit hole. I only finally just managed to change the Samba protocol after spending hours running up against every conceivable obstacle it could throw at me.

I can't run the machines off an old router because the reason I need this is I am trying to do gigabit tests on some cables and I need a direct connection for that. I have to use Mint because that is on one of the two machines I have available for testing.

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#2428893 28-Feb-2020 14:55

Try booting from a USB flash drive with Win 10 PE on it. That'll give you a temporary Win to Win network. Likewise, your Linux distro install stick will have a stable pre-install desktop environment included - boot to that on your Win 10 box & conduct your tests from there. Either way, you won't affect the hard drive installs, once you reboot it'll be back to normal.

If you need a WinPE iso image, let me know & I'll upload one for you.

A further alternative is that since Win 10 is now quite agnostic & swaps between computers quite happily, is to pull a Win 10 HDD from a loose laptop or PC, stick it into the Mint machine & use your Win to Win network.

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Rikkitic

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#2428900 28-Feb-2020 15:12

Thanks those are good ideas. I had already considered swapping a drive but I just couldn't accept that I couldn't get this to work. I'm pretty sure I have WIN 10 PE. I would have to check but I like your idea of using the Linux distro, which I also have. As long as you don't have to dive under the surface, the GUI functions work very well. However I want to run LAN Speed Test and that is Windows only and I don't want to complicate things with WINE.

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cyril7

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#2428906 28-Feb-2020 15:26

Hi, honestly use a GigE switch with your router on it and use DHCP from the router to furnish the network, the switch should not limit your throughput.

Other things to consider is the Mint firewall, by default at leas the public profile will be on, I suggest you check that it is set to allow inbound SMB connections

Cyril

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#2428908 28-Feb-2020 15:28

iperf & the later iperf3 run on both Linux & Windoze.

PS: your description of Linux is so on the mark!

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BarTender

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#2429036 28-Feb-2020 19:32

I can't believe if you're not comfortable doing the network configuration why you wouldn't just use any router with GB ports. It will do everything for you and provide a solution for all the things that you can't do without impacting the speed.

Seems like you enjoy making your life more difficult for yourself.

Otherwise get a geeks on wheels or similar person to come around and sort it for you.

Rikkitic

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#2429351 29-Feb-2020 17:37

OK I finally got this sorted. I went off to do something else for awhile then came back to it. Testing through the router works fine of course but it doesn’t cover everything and I wanted to understand why some things weren’t working. Eventually I traced it all to configuration problems on different devices and a firewall rule that was getting in the way as suggested by Cyril7 above, though it was actually on a Windows machine.

Thanks as always to everyone for the helpful advice.

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afe66

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#2429488 1-Mar-2020 08:34

So the windows machine was the can of worms then...

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Rikkitic

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#2429500 1-Mar-2020 09:05

It was definitely a big part of the problem, which was compounded by my own lack of expertise so I got confused by things I didn't understand and spent a lot of time going in circles before I finally figured it out.

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