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Troubleshooting Basic FacetWin Connection Problems


5/15/98

If you do not see your server icon in Network Neighborhood, or you get the notorious "\\hostname is not accessible" error when double-clicking your server icon in Network Neighborhood, don't despair! This document should help to provide you with a solution to whatever is keeping your PC and UNIX server from establishing a FacetWin connection.


ON PC (Win95):

CHECK YOUR NETWORK PROPERTIES

In your Network Properties (right-click the Network Neighborhood icon and scroll down to Properties), do the following:

Click the Identification tab. The entry in the Workgroup field should match the "workgroup=" entry on the UNIX box's facetwin.cfg file (default location /usr/facetwin).

Single-click the TCP/IP component attached to your ethernet card and click Properties. Make sure your PC's subnet mask matches your UNIX netmask if the machines are on the same subnet. Click the WINS Configuration tab and ensure that you have enabled WINS Resolution for that PC, and your primary WINS server entry matches the IP address of your UNIX host. If you have an NT server running a WINS server, then the Win95's WINS server may be set to the IP address of the NT server. In this case, set the primary_wins_server flag in your facetwin.cfg file to the IP address of the NT. NOTE: Some versions of Win95 require that both primary and secondary WINS server fields have an entry, so just enter the same IP address for both. Otherwise, you may find Windows 95 will automatically disable WINS resolution after rebooting your PC.

In your TCP/IP properties, also click the Bindings tab and ensure that Client for Microsoft Networks and File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks are both bound to TCP/IP (both boxes should be checked).

Make sure Client for Microsoft Networks and File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks are both installed. Check the properties of File and printer sharing to make sure that Browse Master is set to Automatic or Enabled.


ON PC (NT 4.0 Workstation):

CHECK YOUR NETWORK PROPERTIES

In your Network Properties (right-click the Network Neighborhood icon and scroll down to Properties), do the following:

Click the Identification tab. The entry in the Workgroup field should match the "workgroup=" entry on the UNIX box's facetwin.cfg file (default location /usr/facetwin).

Single-click on the Protocols tab and then click TCP/IP and click Properties. If you have specified an IP address, make sure your PC's subnet mask matches your UNIX netmask if the machines are on the same subnet. Click the WINS Address tab and ensure that you have enabled WINS Resolution for that PC, and your primary WINS server entry matches the IP address of your UNIX host. If you have an NT server running a WINS server, then the NT Workstation's WINS server may be set to the IP address of the NT server. In this case, set the primary_wins_server flag in your facetwin.cfg file to the IP address of the NT.

Under the Services tab, ensure that you have the Computer Browser service enabled and you will also need the Server service listed if you wish to share files or printers from this NT machine.

Finally, click on the Bindings tab and make sure the Server and Workstation services are bound to WINS Client (TCP/IP).


ON UNIX SERVER:

MAKE SURE FACETWIN IS RUNNING

Upon the completion of the FacetWin install, there should be at least three FacetWin daemons running as processes (some fct_remprt remote printer servers may also show up). To verify, run the following:

		ps -ef | grep fct_
	or
		ps -aux | grep fct_		# for some Sun systems

Output should be similar to:

root 16876     1  0 14:03:06       ?    00:00:11 /usr/facetwin/sys/fct_licd -D
root  1916     1  0   Jul-16       ?    00:02:51 /usr/facetwin/sys/fct_brwd -D
root  2089     1  0   Jul-16       ?    00:03:06 /usr/facetwin/sys/fct_winsd -D

If your output doesn't include these three processes, you can start them up with the following command:

	/etc/fct_winsd_all start	# "stop" will stop servers 

If you have a later release of FacetWin, you can do this through the FacetWin administration menu 'fct_adm'.

After (re)starting FacetWin, check your syslog for any errors.

  1. cd to /etc

  2. Type 'grep debug syslog.conf' to find out where syslogd is storing its debug information. Grep should return something like this:

    		
    		*.debug		/usr/adm/syslog
    	

    The file "syslog" is just a text file, and can be named anything. It is only important that the debug messages get passed from syslogd to this file. If the debug line is not in syslog.conf you can add it and then re-initialize the syslog daemon by sending a 'kill -1 ' to the syslogd process.

  3. Look at the end of the syslog for any information pertaining to FacetWin (or a failed network connection):

    		tail /(syslog path)/(syslog file name)
    	


MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A VALID FACETWIN LICENSE

Run the command 'fct_licinfo | pg' and verify that there is a positive value for "Licensed Users". If fct_licinfo fails to return the license server information, check the loopback address as described in the Networking Errors section below.

If the value for "Licensed Users" is zero, run the program fct_licedit (or select #1 from the fct_adm menu), select item #2 and observe the contents of your license table. If you have a demo license, it should look similar to this:

 LINE MACH ID  LICENSE #        USERS TYPE        EXPIRES
 ---- -------- ---------------- ----- ----------- ------------
    1 enignbq3    Demo            50  Demo        ()

A regular license would just have different values for "license #", "users", "type", and "expires".

If this table is empty, add your FacetWin license or contact FacetCorp for a demo license key.


CHECK TO SEE IF YOU HAVE NETWORKING ERRORS

We need to see if the UNIX box is responsible for the error messages caused by a failed PC --> UNIX connection.

First, check your syslog for errors (see above for instructions). If the syslog has reported no errors, then it's possible that inetd has not properly (if at all) configured the socket that FacetWin utilizes to setup a NetBIOS session between the PC and UNIX server.

Type 'netstat -an | grep 139'. You should at least get the following back:

tcp        0      0  *.139                  *.*                    LISTEN
udp        0      0  *.139                  *.*

If netstat reports either port 139 is not configured, or is idle, then we know that the FacetWin install failed to modify the correct inetd.conf and services files. If this is the case, you probably have a older version of FacetWin that did not provide checking for "alternate" directories for these files (most systems use /etc). To verify, get your FacetWin part number.

	cat /usr/facetwin/partno.txt

If the number in parentheses is less than 296, you probably need to upgrade FacetWin. Upgrade FacetWin now.

If none of the above troubleshooting steps yield any pertinent answers, you may have some discrepancies in your host TCP/IP configuration. It's possible an IP address may have been changed in one place and not updated in another, or your routing tables don't have the same information as the file /etc/hosts. Whatever the reason for the discrepancy, the best place to verify this is to view the host's routing table. On SCO, this is done with the command 'netstat -rn'. Typical output from this command:

# netstat -rn
Routing tables
Destination      Gateway            Flags    Refs     Use  Interface
199.29.172.1     199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
199.29.193.1     199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
199.29.190.1     199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
199.29.171.1     199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
199.29.191.1     199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
199.29.170.1     199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
220.220.221.1    199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
199.199.199.1    199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
127.0.0.1        127.0.0.1          UH          1        0 lo0
220.220.221.2    199.29.166.7       UGH         0        0 e3B0
199.199.199.2    199.29.166.7       UGH         0   160042 e3B0
199.29.166.250   127.0.0.1          UGH         0        0 lo0
199.29.166.252   127.0.0.1          UGH         0        0 lo0
220.220.220      199.29.166.7       UG          0     6314 e3B0
222.222.222      199.29.166.65      UG          1      348 e3B0
199.29.166       199.29.166.1       U          30 13344375 e3B0

When looking for clues, consider the following:

If you find errors in your routing tables, you probably need to go back to your TCP/IP configuration utility (i.e. SCO's 'netconfig' or AIX's 'smit tcpip') and modify your current configuration. This utility should update your routing tables (as well as /etc/hosts) after modification.

These notes should get you on your way to solving this riddle. As always, if you still need help, please contact FacetCorp technical support.