Mac Networking Question

[aronkerkhof]

Ok, I don't do network or hardware support anymore, though usually I'm no slouch at it. I especially don't work on Macs, but...

Today I handed off a website to a client, and one of the apps I built emails their sales personnel service requests. Long story short, there is a utility building about 400 feet from the main building where the guys in trucks pick up service orders and go out on them. The main site is nothing but wintell, this satelite building is nothing but Macs, for a reason that is long and not worth explaining. Anyway, they innocently asked if I wouldn't mind setting up an email account for them. Sure, said I, having never seen this satelite Mac shop.

The fact it was a Mac threw me, but I got it figured out. But no joy. I asked around, and it turns out they've NEVER had internet access work out there. Great. Their wiring was a mess, and was hooked up all wrong, but I got all their hubs and switches sorted out, and all their Macs were hooked up to hot ethernet lines.

Now, if I hook up my XP laptop, I get ip addy, gateway, and dns from their DHCP server, and I get internet access fine. I hook up the mac, and it pulls the same info, but no network access. I can access the router in the main building from a mac through the web-based internet, but I can't get out to the external network. Grrr...

One thing I noticed was under MAC IE 5.2 preferences, there is a box checked "Proxy all web requests." Well, they don't use a proxy, but when I uncheck it and hit ok, it goes right back to being checked next time I check it.

So, if anyone knows anything about OSX, and can see where I'm going wrong, please let me know. If not, I can sic a few networking guys I know on it, but if its simple I'd just do the work and bill them myself.

Side note, I liked what I saw of OSX. Very pretty. But the interface still felt like rubbing my tummy and patting my head, and they all had their damn mice sensitivity turned way too low.

[Crayz9000]

Open a terminal window, and try pinging some other computer. That's a far more reliable indicator of network access than Internet Explorer.

If the problem turns out to be IE, I suppose you could just set Safari as the default browser or something.

[aronkerkhof]

Open a terminal window, and try pinging some other computer. That's a far more reliable indicator of network access than Internet Explorer.

If the problem turns out to be IE, I suppose you could just set Safari as the default browser or something.

I've got DHCP, I can browse the router. What more do I need? I know I'm on the network, and I know I'm not on the internet. Anyway, how do I go about opening a terminal window? I tried figuring that out for like 20 minutes.

Also, what is the mail client the Mac comes with? Cause that didn't have access either, come to think of it.

[Crayz9000]

Open a terminal window, and try pinging some other computer. That's a far more reliable indicator of network access than Internet Explorer.

I've got DHCP, I can browse the router. What more do I need? I know I'm on the network, and I know I'm not on the internet. Anyway, how do I go about opening a terminal window? I tried figuring that out for like 20 minutes.

The terminal's not on the Dock? I'm pretty positive that it includes a symlink on the Dock... well, in any event, you can just browse to the Applications folder and find 'tcsh'.

As for the mail client, I have absolutely no clue. Ask Durandal; he should know.

[phongn]

The terminal should be in Applications/Utilities or something like that. Either that, or do a search for terminal.app

The Mail client is called mail.app, though I don't know where it's stored. Somewhere in the Applications directory, no doubt.

IE5.2 sucks. Get Safari (if it's not already installed), it's a KHTML-based browser by Apple and is much better. Camino (Cocoa-ized version of Mozilla) is decent, as is Firebird.

What version of OS X are they using? OS X 10.2 is the latest release version, though 10.3 is supposed to be out any day now.

[aronkerkhof]

Well, I'm stymied getting anything else because I can't browse the web. I'm not sure what version it is. I'm dissappointed though, as hooking up a Mac to the internet is not supposed to be this hard.

[Durandal]

What version of OS X is it? 10.2.x? 10.1.x? You can find out by going to the Apple menu and then to "About This Mac."

Have you tried any other web browsers, if any others are installed on those machines?

Have you tried pinging sites? You can access many network utility functions (like ping, traceroute, et cetera) by going to /Applications/Utilities/Network Utility. If you're comfortable with a *nix command line, go to /Applications/Utilities/Terminal. To rule out a DNS problem, try pinging sites by their IP addresses. 216.239.41.99 is Google's IP address, so give that a shot.

The mail client for OS X is called Mail. It should be in the Dock (it's a postage stamp icon). If not, it'll be inside /Applications. It's pretty simple to configure.

Also, be sure that there are no proxies set. To check this, go to the Apple menu, then to System Preferences. Then go to Network. Then make sure that you're viewing the Built-in Ethernet (under the Show menu) configuration and click on the Proxies tab. Disable all proxies.

And, Phong, Panther comes out tomorrow.

[aronkerkhof]

I tracked it down. There was a DNS service started on this machine. I disabled this, and bingo. It was going to the local DNS for resolution instead of the one specificed in the IP settings. Wierd, and it also apparently prevented it from browsing external IP addresses. I confirmed this behavior myself.

Anyway, everything is working on that machine, but now there is about 10 9.x machines that have a similar problem. At least one machine in the building is a go. Thanks for the responses, the tips on getting to the console were helpful.