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Nov 4, 2003, 8:27pm

I run my world "Unreal" on another computer that I just received. There's
only the Active World server and WinMe installed on it. The world server
says that the world is connected to local and that there's no error. In my
AW browser, the world appear in the list, but when I click on it to teleport
in it, the browser keeps saying "Looking for Unreal..." and I am not able to
enter it. Any help would be very appreciated.

-Weizer

Nov 4, 2003, 8:54pm

You may need to "reset" your world when you first install it (or move
it) to a new computer/server. This is one cause of the "Looking for..."
message. Make sure you have a backup of your world data (property,
attributes, and terrain) and try this: in the world admin tool,
right-click on Unreal and then select "Reset World." Then reload/import
your world data (property, attributes, etc.) again using the admin tool.

Restart your AW browser and try to enter Unreal again. Hopefully it
should work. If not, do you have a router, firewall, or an Internet
sharing device that may be blocking something?

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 9:17pm

I just went thru this with somebody and this is what we did. If this don't
fix it we can try something else lol. Have both computers set subnet mask to
255.255.0.0 and put the default gateways to identical, ex: if default
gateways is 221.52.40.1 then make sure or set both computers to have it set
same...both computers should have identical subnet mask and default gateway
(this is assuming they have more than 1 IP#) otherwise it would be the
configurations in the router vs the computers.

Weebo

[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 9:27pm

It would also be nice if AW would set up a world just for world owner
support for tips, things to try, troubleshooting, and possibly in the World
FAQ section for troubleshooting tips. Something like that lol.
Weebo

[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 9:28pm

I do use a router, Buildzerz. Though, I don't understand what you're talking
about Weebo. I don't know much about networks... can you tell me what a
subnet mask and a gateway are ? And how can I change them under WinMe ?

Thanks.
-Weizer
"weebo" <weebo at my.activeworlds.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
3fa8418f$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com...
> I just went thru this with somebody and this is what we did. If this don't
> fix it we can try something else lol. Have both computers set subnet mask
to
> 255.255.0.0 and put the default gateways to identical, ex: if default
> gateways is 221.52.40.1 then make sure or set both computers to have it
set
> same...both computers should have identical subnet mask and default
gateway
> (this is assuming they have more than 1 IP#) otherwise it would be the
> configurations in the router vs the computers.
>
> Weebo
>
[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 10:21pm

What you describe sounds like the typical behavior of a router/switch and
NAT device.

What type of router do you use?

You might try http://www.andras.net/router_aw/router_aw.html for specific
directions on setting up two common routers.

-Jeremy


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeremy Booker - Owner / Webmaster
JTech Web Systems
www.JTechWebSystems.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about
itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." -Mathew 5:34
[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 10:21pm

This is done thru the internet connection properties internet protocol
Can be checked by right mouse clicking on the double monitor icon.
Can be changed thru your Internet Protocol properties.
Below is a simple standard setup for routers.

[View Quote] Gateway - Any hardware or software that is used for the purpose of providing
access from one system to another

Subnet Mask - A bit mask used to select bits from an Internet address for
subnet addressing. Also known as Address Mask.



Step 1: Determine if your Cable/DSL modem uses DHCP or a fixed address.
Before you begin setting up the router, you should know if your cable or DSL
modem uses Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) to supply an address
to your computer or if your Internet Service Provider (ISP) has given you a
fixed network address. DHCP is a method in which the device attached to the
modem (in this case, the router) asks the modem for the address to use when
communicating on the Internet. Each time the router is restarted, the modem
may supply the router with a different address. If your ISP does not support
DHCP, then they would have given you a specific IP address when they setup
your connection. An IP address will be a series of 4 numbers between 0 and
255, separated by periods, such as 192.168.10.123. If you are unsure, call
your ISP. Almost all cable ISPs use DHCP.



Step 2: Configuring the router for DHCP or fixed address. All routers will
have their own unique configuration user interface. A common aspect of these
interfaces is that many of them are available using a web browser. If your
router doesn't have a browser interface, you will have to install the
setup/configuration software that came with the router. Again, you will have
to read your manual.

Once you are familiar with the router's configuration interface, go to the
screen/page that allows you to enable or disable DHCP. Note that the router
is not only a DHCP client to the modem, but also a DHCP server to all the
PCs connected to it. You are looking to change the DHCP settings for the
router to the modem (may be listed as "WAN configuration?.

When you have found the correct section of the configuration, either enable
DHCP or disable it and enter the specific IP address that you received from
your ISP. IMPORTANT: after you save your changes to the router
configuration, you need to reset (power off/on) BOTH your router AND the
modem.

Other configuration options of the Cable/DSL router

Depending on the make and model of your router, there may be many other
features that can be configured to get the most from your router investment.
This section will briefly describe some of the features that are available
on some routers. You will have to refer to your router's manual to see if it
has any of these features and if so, how to use and configure them.

1.. Static IP Addressing: most all routers not only are DHCP servers, but
can also be configured to support computers or other devices that may have
static IP addresses. For example, you may have a network capable printer
that has a static address and would like to make it available to other
computers on the network. Your router should allow you to add static IP
addresses that will be recognized and serviced by the router.
2.. Internet Access Control: Some routers give you the ability to disallow
access to the outside Internet to specific computers connected to the
router. This control can be on/off all the time or be set to be unavailable
at specific times (such as during "working" hours). For home networks, this
feature can become useful if you need to control access to the Internet to
the younger members of the family.
3.. Support Personal Web Server: If you need to have a computer on your
internal network visible to the outside Internet, the router may support
this. This is useful only if you want to support a computer as a file or web
server. Obvious care is needed if this feature is used because it bypasses
some or all of the built-in firewall features of the router.
4.. Internet Access Monitoring: Less common on the less expensive routers
is the ability to monitor and track the activity of computers on the
Internet. This is a feature more often used by small businesses and less
often in the home network environment.
By no means is this an exhaustive list. Some routers (like the Linksys
BEFN2PS4) support additional features such as Internet long distance phone
features. If you require special features beyond the simple sharing of the
Internet connection, be sure to research the routers available before making
your purchase.

Nov 4, 2003, 10:34pm

Okay, since you use a router, get the local IP address (not your public
IP address) of the WinMe computer (for example, 192.168.0.3). Then go
into the admin interface of your router (you usually do this by typing
its IP address into your Web browser). Make sure that port 7777 TCP (the
default world server port) is open and points to the local IP address of
the WinMe computer. Look at your router's manual or search the Web to
figure out how to do this on your particular model. Or go to
http://www.andras.net/router_aw/router_aw.html for more information.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 10:45pm

Now since your computers and world server is up and running let's talk a
little about configuring the world server.
I have been told that running a server, you have to disable the firewall. I
do not agree with this. You can add the port(s) into the firewall allow in
Norton and mine worked fine unless there is another bug in the world server.
Some common issues in the world server/client is "...after I get my world
up, only I can enter." and "...after I get my world up, everybody else can
enter but me..." lol
Another thing that I have tried with firewalls is disabling it only until
the PPL entered then activated it while they were in the world. Not sure if
this is a good thing but is one that I tested. Here are some links I dug off
the AW World Server Help Pages:
http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw34/install_win.html
http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw34/admin.html
http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw34/admin_multiple.html
http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw34/world_options.html
It would be nice to see AW Support comment on this thread.
Hope some of this helps.
Weebo

[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 11:02pm

That was indeed a router problem, and I solved it.
Thanks a lot everybody for you great help :-)

-Weizer
"weizer" <weizer at my.activeworlds.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
3fa835f2$1 at server1.Activeworlds.com...
> I run my world "Unreal" on another computer that I just received. There's
> only the Active World server and WinMe installed on it. The world server
> says that the world is connected to local and that there's no error. In my
> AW browser, the world appear in the list, but when I click on it to
teleport
> in it, the browser keeps saying "Looking for Unreal..." and I am not able
to
> enter it. Any help would be very appreciated.
>
> -Weizer
>
>

Nov 4, 2003, 11:04pm

Great, hopefully this will make it easier for others.
Was waiting for Andras to jump in lol.
Weebo

[View Quote]

Nov 4, 2003, 11:39pm

We don't usually think about the order of booting/re-booting. Here is a
basic power up/power down sequence so effects can be made that works well
for me for PC's.

Cold power up everything unplugged.
1. Plug in the cable modem and wait a minute or two until the cable modem is
steady blinking.
2. Plug in the router and wait until it becomes stable with the blinking
steady (wireless). Wires to router, lights will be steady. This is
neccessary because if you don't wait long enuff then when you boot up your
computer, it may say your connected but get page display errors.
3. Boot up the computer when everything looks stable.

Power down.
1. Close out all programs.
2. Start menu Turn off computer.
3. When computer is powered off unplug router.
4. When router is off, unplug modem.

Anytime a software has to write to the software ini file, it has to be
rebooted to see the changes take effect.

Anytime a software has to write to the system registries, it will make you
reboot your computer that is so changes to the effects can be made.

Anytime a display setting is changed it will make you reboot unless you have
a graphics card that allows you not to reboot. But changes to the AW Browser
will not be made unless you restart the browser.

Anytime you change a world server setting, you need to reboot the world
server.

Anytime you change a setting to the router, you need to power down and let
cool for a few minutes (mine is 5 minutes) then power back up.
Weebo's notes lol.

[View Quote]

Nov 5, 2003, 12:23am

> Anytime a software has to write to the software ini file, it has to be
> rebooted to see the changes take effect.

What was meant here is that anytime a program has changes to the ini file
the program has to be restarted, not the entire computer lol. We wouldn't
reboot our computer if we made changes to the ini file of a bot. But making
changes to the windows system configuration file would cause you to have to
reboot the computer. My fault.
Weebo

Nov 5, 2003, 1:55am

[View Quote] >
>
> What was meant here is that anytime a program has changes to the ini file
> the program has to be restarted, not the entire computer lol. We wouldn't
> reboot our computer if we made changes to the ini file of a bot. But making
> changes to the windows system configuration file would cause you to have to
> reboot the computer. My fault.

Sometimes you don't even need to restart the program (as long as it has
the ability to read changes without restarting)

--
--Bowen--
http://bowen.homelinux.com
Give me ideas.

Nov 5, 2003, 2:50am

For security reasons, you should *always* use a firewall and/or an
intrusion detection system (IDS) when hosting a world (or any server,
for that matter). Many routers include stateful packet inspection (SPI)
firewalls, but usually only protect incoming data and not outgoing. So
what this means is that it is usually necessary to run a software
firewall on your system to block unauthorized outgoing access attempts.
This is how a majority of Trojan horse programs and spyware are able to
"phone home" your information to an unscrupulous party.

Now, configuring your router and/or firewall rules is another matter. It
depends on what type or model you have, but generally you want to allow
certain ports to get through so your world will work properly.
http://www.andras.net/router_aw/router_aw.html was mentioned before, and
is a good guide.

Lastly, I also recommend that you allow HTTPS (TCP port 443) traffic to
the world server. The AW browser uses this port for users that can't
access AW via other ways. It is commonly used for people at work with
corporate firewalls or proxy servers that block AW's standard ports.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote]

Nov 5, 2003, 3:28am

[View Quote] > Great, hopefully this will make it easier for others.
> Was waiting for Andras to jump in lol.
> Weebo
>

I don't need to jump in except if you want me to criticize your "notes" :)

The first thing you have to do is to think through the information you got from the original post and deduct the facts:

1, His world was running
2, His browser was running
3, His world was properly registered by the universe server
4, He has at least 2 computers.
5, He doesn't seem to be a techie guy :)

Conclusion: on an average household (that is only an assumption!) it is unlikely that he has 2 independent internet connection, so he is probably using a plug and pray router. (I doubt the ICS since he mentioned WinME which leads me to a really not techie user:)
The Cable/DSL routers are really plug and play nowadays but you have to tweak them if you do something other than browsing the web and retrieving your email.
In a nutshell: The router's job is to translate your outgoing request into your public IP address and retranslate the responses and send it to the computer it actually requested.
What it has to be told to the router is what to do with a request which is initiated from the outside world and arrives to your public IP address. Since more than one computer hangs on the private side of the router, you have to specify which computer will handle the request.
Those settings are based on the so called TCP/UDP Port numbers, e.g. 80 is for a web server (http protocol).
Most of todays router makes those settings easy for you: they either call it Virtual Server (why virtual??? they are real!) or port forwarding.
The standard protocols (http, ftp, telnet, etc) usually preconfigured for you but so far I found only one router which has Active Worlds configuration built it(!), the Belkin 54G Wireless cable/dsl router and switch.
Since the world server is by it's nature a SERVER, you have to configure the router so all the incoming requests to your world will redirected to the computer you run it.
When you install the world server with the default settings, it will listen on port 7777 for any request from visitors. It means you have to tell the router that you have a server on the port 7777 and that server's IP address is .... (put your world server's local IP here).
To make the life a littlebit more difficult, the router's (and most of the PCs') default configuration is set to DHCP i.e. they will negotiate what will be the IP address of a particular PC and they do it usually at boot time. If you boot in a different sequence your machines on the same router, it can (and WILL) assign different IP address to the same machine than it had before resulting your inability to access your world server from outside. This is the point where you have to start to learn the basic TCP/IP settings, so you can configure your computer to use a static local IP address but I won't go into the details of that problem.

Another problem is the AW browser which acts as a server when you do file transfers. You have to enable the port 3000 forwarding to the computer you run the browser on, or even better: set up one of the so called "applications" within the browser where the trigger port should be 5670 (for the AW universe users) and the listening port is 3000. This means you don't have to predefine which computer you'll use the browser.

There is one rarely mentioned problem with those routers (actually with the NAT): you can have only one single machine which acts as a server on a given port. It is not a bug in the NAT - just think about it: all internal IP is translated one single public IP and that one can have only one single port settings :)

It was a littlebit long but I hot that helps
--
Andras
"It's MY computer" (tm Steve Gibson)

Nov 5, 2003, 3:59am

[View Quote] > Conclusion: on an average household (that is only an assumption!) it is
> unlikely that he has 2 independent internet connection, so he is
> probably using a plug and pray router. (I doubt the ICS since he
> mentioned WinME which leads me to a really not techie user:)

My mother's Emachine using WinME is still going strong after 3 years.
No crashes, no blue screens, no reformats, no problems. That's an
Emachine for ya.

--
--Bowen--
http://bowen.homelinux.com
Give me ideas.

Nov 5, 2003, 4:22am

Darn typos:

[View Quote] > Another problem is the AW browser which acts as a server when you do
> file transfers. You have to enable the port 3000 forwarding to the
> computer you run the browser on, or even better: set up one of the so
> called "applications" within the router where the trigger port should
^^^^^^
>

> It was a littlebit long but I hope that helps
^^^^
Sorry,
--
Andras
"It's MY computer" (tm Steve Gibson)

Nov 5, 2003, 5:13am

Thanks Andras :)
Weebo

[View Quote]

Nov 5, 2003, 5:25am

Thanks builderz,
Reason I mentioned this is that I have heard from more than one person that
they were told that world servers would not work with a firewall. I quickly
disagreed and wanted this world thread started due to amount of telegrams
i've been getting in AW about their world and another reason I suggested a
central place of information. I ran my personal world servers thru firewalls
and routers with different networks and never had any major problems. I have
tested the world servers many different ways firewalls reacted with
different settings.
Thinking again, this might be a new way some folks are trying to get folks
to disable. Pk's might need a heads up.
Thanks Again,
Weebo
[View Quote]

Nov 5, 2003, 10:36am

Thanks a lot Andras. I had problems with my files transfers and yesterday I
was trying to play with these "Virtual Servers" they're on my router, now I
understand better and as I can see it's mostly a port thing. Fortunatly it
will be easier to solve my problems with your post :-) Networks are more
complicated than I thought eheh. Now I have to set up my HTTP and FTP Server
and I have this feeling that I'll have to put a lot of time on it :-p

-Weizer

Nov 5, 2003, 1:38pm

Ah, I see what you mean now, Weebo. I, too, never had any problems with
running world servers through a router or firewall -- people just need
to setup the proper rules and allow the right ports through. It really
only takes a few minutes to do once you know how to do it for your
particular setup. But telling others to simply disable their firewall
outright isn't very good advice.

The only problem I had was an issue with "loop back support" on my
router. I was trying to host a world on one server and a bot that
connected to that world on another server (both were behind my router).
The bot didn't want to connect to the world. It had to go out to the
'Net via my local LAN and then come "back in" to the world server (hence
the name loop back). All I had to do was update the router with a new
version of firmware which added support for this and it solved the problem.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > Thanks builderz,
> Reason I mentioned this is that I have heard from more than one person that
> they were told that world servers would not work with a firewall. I quickly
> disagreed and wanted this world thread started due to amount of telegrams
> i've been getting in AW about their world and another reason I suggested a
> central place of information. I ran my personal world servers thru firewalls
> and routers with different networks and never had any major problems. I have
> tested the world servers many different ways firewalls reacted with
> different settings.
> Thinking again, this might be a new way some folks are trying to get folks
> to disable. Pk's might need a heads up.
> Thanks Again,
> Weebo

Nov 5, 2003, 1:51pm

The Web (HTTP) server shouldn't be that hard, but don't forget to
assign/open some extra ports on the FTP server for those that use
passive mode. Also note that people may not be able to connect using
passive mode and must connect using the standard FTP port number (TCP
21) instead (it depends on your router).

If you get your local machine's static IP addresses setup, you could try
to connect to your own FTP server via the LAN first to see which
mode/settings work best. I tried two different FTP servers (for my
Windows systems) before I found one that I liked and got along nice with
my router. Good luck.

Builderz
http://www.3dhost.net

[View Quote] > Thanks a lot Andras. I had problems with my files transfers and yesterday I
> was trying to play with these "Virtual Servers" they're on my router, now I
> understand better and as I can see it's mostly a port thing. Fortunatly it
> will be easier to solve my problems with your post :-) Networks are more
> complicated than I thought eheh. Now I have to set up my HTTP and FTP Server
> and I have this feeling that I'll have to put a lot of time on it :-p
>
> -Weizer
>
>

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