Mac and PC networking question

[Wombat]

For windows, the "net" command will tell you a lot. "net share" and "net use" probably most useful.

Both should have "netstat" which will show you IP connections of any type.

[agallag]

For XP, a there's a nice easy GUI way to do it too. Right-click on "my computer", click "manage". Select "system tools/shared folders/sessions". It'll give you a nice list of all the current sessions using your shared folders. Select "open files" and it'll show you what files everybody is using.

[X-Caliber]

Thanks for the tip!

-V-

[X-Caliber]

I finally figured out this wireless thing. Just yesterday, I ripped a DVD to a hard drive on my desktop, put it in a shared folder, and watched it on my laptop - Nice! I think my desktop will become a file server!

[UtwigMU]

One more advice:

If you enable guest account in XP, anyone can connect to your shares. If your machine is actively on the internet, this is even worse. This is how lazy admins do shares in small companies.

Enable guest account on every box, so everyone can access all shares.

I did this - scan a few ip ranges from a few isps for 139 (IIRC) port. Some of the open machines were not passworded.

If this is the case, you can do Start->Run \\IP of target and access his shares. I was doing this for educating myself about exploits, so I haven't caused any harm. I only snagged some MP3's that I didn't have from someone.

Sharing printers like this is even more fun (I didn't do this.). You can print to printers that people have shared and have forgotten to disable file sharing over internet.

Another thing is some worms connect to network shares as Administrator, User and other built in accounts with null and 123, abc and other simple passwords and try to infect them.

First thing: disable guest account. Unless you're using a Windows2000 domain, make sure every user has same username and password on every machine on the LAN and make sure all accounts have passwords.

I have guest account disabled, sdministrator account renamed and password complexity policy (6 signs, 3 of following groups - capital, small letters, symbols and numbers should be in password) enforced. I also have everyone can acess this computer from network permission disabled.

I also have firewalls blocking net BIOS access outside of local LAN.

[Kurt]

That's why you need good firewalls that will block all the right ports and not allow access on the other ones, especially if you're using Windows which will tell you that NetBIOS is disabled but still listens on 135, 137, etc, so anybody can try to connect to C$ using a blank password...