WinGate - RMI conflict

[Debra Bellmaine]

My machine is using WinGate to access the Internet via another machine on my home LAN. I'm working on my developer assignment, and I had been trying to get RMI to work on a sample app on this machine, to no avail until last night. Then I discovered that if I disable the WinGate client on my machine, RMI works like a champ. Before disabling the WinGate client, I tried specifying various ports to get the app to work.
The really odd thing is that even though I have "disabled" the WinGate client via its configuration property sheet, I can still get to the net.
Any ideas on 1) why RMI wasn't working when this was enabled, and 2) why I can still get to the net now that I've got it disabled?
Thanks,
Debra Bellmaine
SCJP2

[Mark Spritzler]

Any ideas on 1) why RMI wasn't working when this was enabled, and 2) why I can still get to the net now that I've got it disabled?

Keep in mind that these are complete wild guesses, based on no experience on my part
Maybe Wingate uses port 1099, hence RMI working when it is disabled.
As far as still being able to access the net. You are still "Connected" to the other machine that has Internet access, so you still have ti on the machine, maybe the client software is more of a "Proxy" or "Firewall" where it is for protection of that machine. And any calls to the internet on that machine is first filtered by the Wingate client, then sent forth to that machine. So now that Wingate client is disabled, there just is no filtering going on, and just sent forth to the machine only.
How does that guess sound?
Mark

[Debra Bellmaine]

Mark, I had tried starting rmiregistry on various ports other than 1099, and of course had rebind() and lookup() referencing the same port, but that didn't cut it. If I understood correctly, the WinGate doc says that it just listens to ports 1024 and lower...
Is it a valid assumption that these kinds of issues don't need to be addressed for the project submission?
Debra

[Mark Spritzler]

Is it a valid assumption that these kinds of issues don't need to be addressed for the project submission?

No not needed at all. I didn't even know there was an issue, till you posted.
Just have Wingate disabled when you are working on your assignment.
Mark

[Michael Morris]

Hi Mark and Debra,
I hate to disagree with the master here, but I run Wingate at home on a 4 computer network. I have no problem running RMI (except for the flakey security issues.) It definitely does not use port 1099 for client/server communication. The client is not really a proxy. Wingate uses NAT to translate between LAN and external (internet) interfaces. Wingate's default firewall settings is probably the problem here. It's been a while since I configured mine but I remember that services (ports) can be configured one-way, two-way or closed. As for being able to connect to the internet with Wingate disabled, that sounds like there is either a router somewhere on the network (or a machine with two NICs and appropriate routing tables) or possibly a different proxy running. Debra, you need to make sure that your network interfaces are using DHCP instead of hard encoding the local IP addresses. You probably don't need to set a gateway on any of the Wingate clients either. I know how frustrating configuring a network can be in order to do everything you want to do. What helps me is I take security seriously without getting paranoid about. It's kinda like love, you either take some chances or be alone.
Hope this helps
Michael Morris

[Mark Spritzler]

I hate to disagree with the master here

No need to worry about that, I did say they were wild guesses.
Mark

[Debra Bellmaine]

Michael,
Thanks for the input. Here's the update. I've now upgraded from a really old WinGate v.3 to the current version. On the server machine (WinME) it turns out it also had "Internet Connection Sharing" turned on, and the newer version of WinGate would not even install until that was totally uninstalled, not even just disabled. With the new WinGate there is no need to install anything on the clients due to its NAT capabilities. I then uninstalled the old version from the clients and everything is hunky-dory.
I suspect that I was hitting into the conflict between WinGate and ME's Internet Connection Sharing - and perhaps before I upgraded the network access to the Internet still worked with the client disabled because it was actually using the Internet Connection Sharing. Interesting, but not an issue now for my developer assignment work.
Thanks,
Debra

[Michael Morris]

Hi Debra,
Glad to be of assistance. I wish I could use a router instead of Wingate. Unfortunately, (actually I feel quite fortunate) here in rural east Texas, the only broadband connection I can get is sattelite which uses USB instead of ethernet like cable. I tried manipulating network settings for over a week, trying to set the host machine up as an internet gateway but never managed to accomplish it. So I use Wingate!
Michael Morris