At 01:26 AM 5/26/01 -0500, Jonathan Daugherty wrote: >When I ping the private LAN bcast address behind my firewall, all machines send packets >except my roommate's win2k pro box. All my boxes are debian / redhat boxes. Anyone know >why this machine is not responding to my bcast pings?
Because it is set not to. I don't know the details of why it is set that way, but not responding to broadcast pings is a commonplace security strategy. On my own LAN, for example, 3 Linux (Debian) hosts do respond to broadcast pings, while a fourth, a Win95 host, and a Win98 host, do not. Broadcast pings are not a very reliable way to find out what is out there. On Linux systems, firewall rules can block them, as can setting /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts . I imagine Windows systems have similar flexibility. -- ------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--- Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------
