[geeks] in which Windows shoots itself in the foot (again)

[Phil Stracchino]

gsm at mendelson.com wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 05, 2009 at 02:08:48PM -0500, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> 
>> Now, the two interfaces are on different subnets.  The wired interface
>> is 10.24.32.51; the wireless interface is 10.24.33.51.  Both are
>> assigned via DHCP.  Windows creates sane default routes, etc, etc ... it
>> creates routes to its own interfaces via loopback, which is a bit weird,
>> but doesn't actually seem to harm anything ... and then it creates
>> static routes to the 10.24.32.0 and 10.24.33.0 subnets pointing straight
>> back at the respective interfaces, which cause EVERYTHING to break.
>> Delete those two routes, and networking all Just Works.  Packets
>> correctly go in and out via the correct interfaces and get where they're
>> supposed to go, no problem.  Leave'em in place, and the machine is
>> catatonic.
> 
> Actually it sounds right to me. There should be a static route to the
> subnet of the interface on that interface.
> 
> what you should have in your routing table is
> 
> 10.24.32.51 -> ethernet
> 10.24.32.50/24 -> ethernet
> 
> 10.24.33.51 -> wifi
> 10.24.33.0/24 ->wifi
> 
> ONLY one default route (0.0.0.0) if it goes to a third interface
> for example, 10.24.31.1, you need ONE and ONLY ONE route to it.
> 
> 
> As far as I am concerned Windows WiFi support did not work properly until
> XP service pack 2. Before that it was hit or miss as to the quality of
> the driver and their supporting programs.
> 
> Only one of them should provide (via dhcp) a default route, and a 
> nameserver address/default domain.

Well, there's "what should happen", and there's "what works".  I end up
with a static route to each interface via loopback, a static route to
each subnet via the interface, and a default route via each interface.
If I delete either default route, that interface ceases to work.  The
*only* thing that I've found makes the networking work as expected is to
delete the subnet routes.  Counter-intuitive, I know; theoretically
wrong, I know; but we're talking Windows, and it's what works.  At the
moment I'll take "working" over "correct".


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.