Windows PC Network - Network Mapping Software?

[indy4x]

nmap 192.168.0.* -v -v

No need for a gui

Yep, as I keep telling my team real guys don't click but if your not comfortable with cmd line stuff a GUI will do

 

[130]

And that small hubs all but disappeared about a decade ago as switches became cheap. You'd be lucky to find a hub. We're talking Cat 3 10 mbps days IIRC


However, the stuff I said earlier, and if you can ping it by IP (or tracert) but not by name then it's name resolution. The MS network identification is a fave.

(based on no scientific diagnosis and guesswork )

 

[Kayos]

Yep, as I keep telling my team real guys don't click but if your not comfortable with cmd line stuff a GUI will do

To be fair I learned Linux with Slackware then gentoo so I’m pretty good with cmd. If I find time I might try a simple gentoo install on my new laptop, just for fun

 

[JoelC]

Late to the party

https://mikrotik.com/thedude

Windows and is pretty intuitive to use.

 

[WorkshopChris]

Big thank you to everyone for your combined input.
I had the most luck with Fing, i have swapped cables and switches(not hubs) power cycled things and its all working again. Strangely after we had a hour hour power cut.
I was very surprised just how many things were shown, its not till you think about all the various printers, pc's, hard drives, cctv, tv boxes & smart tech think i got up to 45 individual bits of kit in the end.
I am very out of touch now, i think its because so much is plug and play and works out of the box, i have put small networks together since win 3.1 with co ax cable then win 95 & NT went cat5 but you had to configure everything, so you learnt how it all worked.
Now i think i need to do away with all the small switches and get another managed switch and spend some time sorting bits out and running more cables.
Got 3 wireless access points and 2 repeaters, again think in the long term maybe combine that all as one with some Power Over Ethernet kit.
When i get time i will have a look at a hardware firewall to try and keep everything safer.

 

[130]

So the thread was a waste in terms of diagnosing and fixing the problem, all it needed was a "have you turned it off and on again"

 

[WorkshopChris]

So the thread was a waste in terms of diagnosing and fixing the problem, all it needed was a "have you turned it off and on again"

I had and have turned bits on and off unplugged and swapped but couldn't get to the end of the problem.
At the moment its working but for how long?
Problem is What goes away by itself can come back by itself.
Not enough hours in the day.

At least now if it disappears from the cad machine again i now have the tools to see whats going on.

EDIT> once again thanks for everyone's time and input, very much appreciated.

 

[ukracer]

A hub is just a means of connecting devices to a common network segment it just copies all data to all other ports. A switch is like a multiport bridge in that it tracks MAC addresses and can send data to just which ports need it.

A managed switch allows you to administer it via telnet, web, SNMP etc. So you can change port speeds or duplex and put ports into different VLANs etc. A dumb switch has no config or monitoring ability and relies on protocols like 802.1u for speed/duplex autonegotiation.

I sort of follow some of that...lol

 

[maz0]

So the thread was a waste in terms of diagnosing and fixing the problem, all it needed was a "have you turned it off and on again"

Not just restarting...he took out the cartridge and blew on it

 

[daleyd]

Not just restarting...he took out the cartridge and blew on it

Don’t knock it - I’ve built a career on that!!

 

[130]

I had and have turned bits on and off unplugged and swapped but couldn't get to the end of the problem.
At the moment its working but for how long?
Problem is What goes away by itself can come back by itself.
Not enough hours in the day.

At least now if it disappears from the cad machine again i now have the tools to see whats going on.

EDIT> once again thanks for everyone's time and input, very much appreciated.

You may have done it or not as I can't tell from the thread but I put instructions to easily establish if it was just name resolution or windows deciding it was on a public network as happens from time to time. No comprehensive but aimed at an unknown level. As far as I can tell it was not attempted but as it is now instead of diagnosing, it is working but potentially unreliable. So as the things I said were based on built in tools I would way you had the tools all along.

 

[130]

Don’t knock it - I’ve built a career on that!!

I built mine on making things keep working by themselves. Do that and people are happy to pay you to do nothing and come and go as you please.

 

[WorkshopChris]

Not necessarily. Try and ping it

Windows boxes are usually workgroups unless joined to a domain. Workgroups don't mean much at all.

Ping printer by name on a PC that can see it.
Then watch the ping result for IP

Ping it by IP on the cad machine
If it answers you have connectivity (barring firewalls on ports)

You could them connect / map the printer by IP.


However, modern Windows will occasionally decide it is on an unidentified network and filter connectivity so make sure the network is identified as home or work

This is the bit i could not understand, i think it may be a windows problem.
I discovered that:-
The printer was showing on the network to other pcs with ip adress i could use to acess the print server config settings and would print.
The cad machine was showing the printer as offline, and the properties box gave an incorrect ip address. ( i presume an old ip address that had not updated)
The cad machine would only see the devices directly connected to the switch it was also connected to (NAS units) but although not showing anything else on the network i still had full interconnectivity.

Previously i have on odd occasions lost access to the printer (via cad pc) that is simply restored by power cycling the printer.

 

[daleyd]

I built mine on making things keep working by themselves. Do that and people are happy to pay you to do nothing and come and go as you please.

Ah well done - that sounds super

 

[130]

This is the bit i could not understand, i think it may be a windows problem.
I discovered that:-
The printer was showing on the network to other pcs with ip adress i could use to acess the print server config settings and would print.
The cad machine was showing the printer as offline, and the properties box gave an incorrect ip address. ( i presume an old ip address that had not updated)
The cad machine would only see the devices directly connected to the switch it was also connected to (NAS units) but although not showing anything else on the network i still had full interconnectivity.

Previously i have on odd occasions lost access to the printer (via cad pc) that is simply restored by power cycling the printer.

Well basically ping is a program that sends a packet of data to the destination and bounces it back, just like submarines pinging targets in old WWII films, except totally different

On later versions of Windows it is not necessarily installed by default but easy enough to find how to add it.

So then you go start -> Run (or search bar near "start button)
type cmd
Enter
Hope fully have the black and white text command prompt open up
So then you may type
C:\Users\X>ping 192.168.0.1
Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 1ms
C:\Users\X>

So in the above that would typically be pinging your router, easy first test to make sure ping working
So if pinging bob works from everywhere else but....
Then you ping the printer by name say it's called bob, on the affected machine
If pinging bob doesn't work then pinging bob's IP does then there is a problem with name resolution

Now sometimes if a windows box (not on a domain) can't reach the internet it decides it doesn't know what network it is on and decides it is public
When it does this it turns on a load of port blocking that is not on if it thinks it is on a home or work network. You just have to look at the settings and choose home or network. Due to the daft dumbed down interface in later versions wrapped on top of the old style settings boxes I would say use help in your version to navigate to it.

Re the properties box showing the wrong IP
Chances are you are using DHCP and potentially the address changed and everything else picked it up. This would not normally stop you editing the port settings for the printer and putting in the correct IP manually. Obviously this can again break by future DHCP changes

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Well basically ping is a program that sends a packet of data to the destination and bounces it back, just like submarines pinging targets in old WWII films, except totally different

On later versions of Windows it is not necessarily installed by default but easy enough to find how to add it.

So then you go start -> Run (or search bar near "start button)
type cmd
Enter
Hope fully have the black and white text command prompt open up
So then you may type
C:\Users\X>ping 192.168.0.1
Pinging 192.168.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=64
Ping statistics for 192.168.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 1ms
C:\Users\X>

So in the above that would typically be pinging your router, easy first test to make sure ping working
So if pinging bob works from everywhere else but....
Then you ping the printer by name say it's called bob, on the affected machine
If pinging bob doesn't work then pinging bob's IP does then there is a problem with name resolution

Now sometimes if a windows box (not on a domain) can't reach the internet it decides it doesn't know what network it is on and decides it is public
When it does this it turns on a load of port blocking that is not on if it thinks it is on a home or work network. You just have to look at the settings and choose home or network. Due to the daft dumbed down interface in later versions wrapped on top of the old style settings boxes I would say use help in your version to navigate to it.

Re the properties box showing the wrong IP
Chances are you are using DHCP and potentially the address changed and everything else picked it up. This would not normally stop you editing the port settings for the printer and putting in the correct IP manually. Obviously this can again break by future DHCP changes

By default Dell machines block pings, you have to create a custom rule to allow it to be pinged remotely... gave us a lot of headaches before we realised.

 

[130]

^^ Which is why you test ping the router, to get a "control" view whether ping is working. Plus most FW allow packets out and automatically allow the response to the request back in, plus the printer is not a PC.