Build 19: Active window tracking

[Aragent]

I think they're talking about on the "left side" and "right side" of a firewall. Why would you put mojo on the outside of your internal firewall?

ICS=Internet Connection Sharing is the built-in NAT feature in Microsoft Windows and allows a Windows PC to “share” its Internet connection to other networked devices. In this configuration, the PC with ICS is directly connected to the Internet in some way (modem, ISDN, etc.) and networked with other computers. The ICS-enabled PC can then share its connection with other Windows computers, acting as an NAT device. In addition, the ICS-enabled PC can automatically assign IP addresses through DHCP.

The problem in Mooraes case is that when Mojo is running on the machine running ICS its detecting the IP address provided by the Cable/ISDN Router and choosing this as defualt and not his Private Internal address.

Most of that if I remember correct is how ICS Handles Nat translation and generates its internal DHCP.

[Moorea]

internet side isn't really the internet; just another network that's not the ICS private one and happens to also have the router to the actual internet

[...]

Note btw this problem is not specific to ICS - any computer with 2 interfaces where you can't route/access 1 of the IP from the other side will have the exact same problem (ie will advertise the same IP on both side which won't work on one of the network, with again an ez fix (a cleaner fix would actually be to get the IP of each interface and broadcast separately but that's more work and unnecessary)

Aragent, Fur ^^^

[Freddie]

Problem 1
--------------
Step 1: 2 computers A and B; B sharing the A's internet connection (Windows built in ICS feature, need 2 interfaces)
Step 2: start mojo on both
Step 3: on A (the computer which has 2 ips) you'll get a black screen for the B mojo
Step 4: on A go to advanced connection settings; pick 192.168.0.1 instead of "let the operating system choose"
Step 5: 2 mojos are now blue on both A and B and everything now works (which shows it's "fixable")

The bug is step 3 and the need for step 4

My personal opinion again on the fix is that sending both IPs in the UDP packet and having the slave try the second one if the first one doesn't succeed would fix it easily and simply with no downside I can see


Problem 2
--------------
Step 6: Add a 3rd computer C on the "internet" side of A (ie not on same network as B)
Step 7: Start Mojo on C: C is yellow picture (in computers section) and purple text (in geeky stuff section) on A - 3rd column of text shows "C" (B is still blue with "AC"); A is yellow on C; B's screen shows A,B blue unchanged (doesn't see C which is normal)
Step 8: pick the other IP; C becomes blue too

So here again, trying both automatically will fix the problem - More work (and not necessary imo; would introduce complexity), i.e write a proxy, would be needed for C to see B and B to see A (proxied through A)


Diagram

B --------------------> A (ICS share) -------------> C
"private ICS side" ................... "internet side"
(aka 'inside') .............................(aka 'outside')

internet side isn't really the internet; just another network that's not the ICS private one and happens to also have the router to the actual internet


If problem 2 is confusing - just look at problem 1 as fixing it will fix both

Note btw this problem is not specific to ICS - any computer with 2 interfaces where you can't route/access 1 of the IP from the other side will have the exact same problem (ie will advertise the same IP on both side which won't work on one of the network, with again an ez fix (a cleaner fix would actually be to get the IP of each interface and broadcast separately but that's more work and unnecessary)


Thanks

ps: It's 3am here so hopefully this is clear enough - and if not - well I'll try again some other day as I need sleep now

Thank you very much for taking time to explain this clearly. This is what I needed in the first place. All the time we spent going back and forth about this last night -- what a waste.

Here's my summary of what happened. Please correct me if I misunderstand.

You had to adjust a setting manually (using the drop down list) to make the computers connect.

After you adjusted the setting by clicking on a drop down list, the program worked perfectly.

You're calling that a bug.

That's my summary. Is that correct?

Please let me know if the program worked perfectly after you clicked on the drop down list. I need to know. Thank you.

[Aragent]

Note btw this problem is not specific to ICS - any computer with 2 interfaces where you can't route/access 1 of the IP from the other side will have the exact same problem (ie will advertise the same IP on both side which won't work on one of the network, with again an ez fix (a cleaner fix would actually be to get the IP of each interface and broadcast separately but that's more work and unnecessary)

True But thats pretty standard in Subnetwork protocol. and normmaly when you want it to pass you setup addvanced network Rounting and port forwarding. but now your getting into more advanced networking, and Those who use subnetworking should be a bit more advanced than the average user and shouldn't have problems with changing the ip address under mojo.

[Freddie]

You guys are assuming that the OS always picks the "wrong" IP address in this situation.

Do you have some basis for believing that the OS's algorithm works this way?

[Aragent]

You guys are assuming that the OS always picks the "wrong" IP address in this situation.

Do you have some basis for believing that the OS's algorithm works this way?

I havent looked at what your using for a discovery protocol, I am making a couple assumptins here. and I will try to look latter and see what MOJO is acually using.

I am assuming your using DHCP discovery when detecting network addresses and UDP ARP for detecting other running Mojo clients.

Last I looked it was standard when discovering 2 Network IP's especially on one network card, to give Priorty to a Public IP address over a Private one.

I Might have a couple suggestions however I think I should try and see if I can find the accual Code first befor I do.

[Moorea]

When a computer has 2 interfaces, using 1 of the IPs on a random interface has 50% chance to be wrong; using that same IP on both interfaces has 100% chance to be wrong; which is exactly what is happening here (causing the user to have to click 10 times to workaround this while it's just a matter of trying both IPs (or asking the correct one from the OS for the correct interface, but that's (again) more work and actually unnecessary when the trying until it works would work just fine))

But I'll rest my case on the topic; spent too much time on this already

[Freddie]

I havent looked at what your using for a discovery protocol, I am making a couple assumptins here. and I will try to look latter and see what MOJO is acually using.

I am assuming your using DHCP discovery when detecting network addresses and UDP ARP for detecting other running Mojo clients.

Last I looked it was standard when discovering 2 Network IP's especially on one network card, to give Priorty to a Public IP address over a Private one.

I Might have a couple suggestions however I think I should try and see if I can find the accual Code first befor I do.

I explained what it does earlier in the thread. It broadcasts a UDP datagram. It doesn't use DHCP. It doesn't detect network addresses. It doesn't look at the network in any way.

The only thing it does with addresses is ask the operating system for a list of IP addresses that belong to the PC it's running on.

If you want to look at the code, it's in class cFinder in the mojo_engine project.

If you want to understand the whole connection mechanism, you'll also have to look at class cPool, which handles TCP communications.

[Fursphere]

I'm going to go out on a limb here - but running 2 nics in one PC is a non-standard config.

Want proof? Go look at any desktop PC made by Dell, and find me one that comes with two onboard NICs standard.

I use multiple nics in one PC for two things:
1) FIrewall servers (Microsoft ISA, Soothwall, etc)
2) Redundant connections on server hardware.

[Moorea]

All laptops come with 2+ nics : wireless and ethernet - if you want the best network performance and have 2 such laptops you will setup the ethernet to try to pay the wireless latency "price" only once - which is again my real (not hyphotetical either) case - if you have 1 wired computer, 2 laptops and want to box you may want to setup the way I had: the 2 laptops linked to each other with ethernet; and the rest in a home network; ie 2 interfaces used with 1 of the laptops in the middle

Anyway, we spend more time arguing whether this is an issue or not than actually fixing it would take - I'm not saying it's the highest priority issue just that it shouldn't be summarily dismissed - typically you weigh the cost vs benefit of any fix to see if it's worth it - here I see big benefit for an admittedly small fraction of users but at a small cost - so personally I'd rank that "medium", not "low" as a result

I look forward to a ticketing system where interested party can follow the issues they care about and the people who do not care don't necessarily have to feel obliged to comment (can "vote" it down if they want I guess) - even if the resolution is "wontfix" at least it'd be documented why etc...