On the other hand, if he DOES have a non-private routable IP address, by posting it to the list he will invite all manner of 'helpful' attempts to crack his network.
The non-routeable addresses or private IP addresses according to RFC 1918 fall in the ranges of: 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 If the IP you are trying to ping is in one of these ranges, it shouldn't be reachable across the Internet - at a minimum your ISP's routers are programmed to ignore requests to route to these addresses. Just because this is a linux list doesn't mean the script kiddies haven't figured out how to read these messages. John Amdor David Lane wrote: > Ping is definitely NOT obsolete.Before I speculate too much you should post > the IP address you are trying to ping or telnet to.Most cable and DSL modems > contain their own IP's that are in the private range.If your trying to ping > or telnet to one of those you can give it up,the user can but you on the > outside can't.You can only ping or telnet to his public IP that he is > assigned when he connects. > XP does have the capability to setup an incoming connection for VPN but > unless your son has a static IP(not likely these days)this will be more of a > hassle than it's worth as his IP probably changes at least every three days > even if he is connected 24/7.Have your son run "ipconfig" in a DOS window > and that will/should give you his public IP. > Send the IP you were trying to ping and I'll try to give you a better > answer. > > David Lane - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
