input.txt

CSLIB, a C++ database library.

QUESTION:
RAS will not dial out. It shows on the screen that it is dialing out, but then returns an error stating that my modem and/or serial card is not functioning. This is strange since I can connect to CompuServe without errors. 

ANSWER:
COM software and RAS have different cabling needs. So, the fact that your COM software works does not assure that RAS will work.
Are you using a 25-pin to 9-pin Mouse cable adapter?  Or does your serial cable plug directly into the COM port on the computer and modem?

See the RAS on-line Help topic "Cabling Requirements" for details.

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QUESTION:
How do I change the default timeout? I have searched the Registry and all other files 
and found nothing. Also, what do you define as idle, as I have had a 24-hour connection established, 
with absolutely no processing?

ANSWER:
You can change the idle timeout value in the Registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE on Local
Machine\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RemoteAccess\Parameters\Autodisconnect.
By default this value will be 0x14 (20 minutes). Change it to something like 0x5.

Idle is defined as no significant traffic over the link.  You can have a computer
connected with no visible processes running, but keep in mind things like the browser,
replication, etc. that run on the system without any user intervention.  These processes
can keep the RAS link alive.

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QUESTION:
I've loaded RAS on a Windows NT Server computer that is a member server, not a domain controller. When I run RAS Administrator to grant dial-in privileges, I only see the local users -- Administrator and Guest, not the domain users. I can run User Manager for Domains and see the domain users, but RAS Administrator does not see them.  Must I load RAS on a domain controller to support people calling into my domain? 

ANSWER:
It sounds like you have RAS Administrator focused on the local computer instead of the domain.
In RAS Admin, from the Server menu, select the Select Domain or Server command and enter the domain name.
When the screen refreshes you should be able to view the domain RAS accounts.

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QUESTION:
I connect often to a SLIP server using Netmanage Chamelion on my Windows for Workgroups computer every day. When I try to use my Windows NT Server version 3.5, I cannot connect and get a 611 error instead. I enter my login and password fine, but when I choose the Done button I instantly get the 611 error. It tells me the route is unknown. What can I do to get this up and running?

ANSWER:
Windows NT RAS cannot accept incoming SLIP calls. It will accept incoming PPP calls, and it will make outgoing PPP or SLIP calls. 
Configure your client software, Netmanage Chamelion on your Windows for Workgroups computer, to use PPP when it dials a Windows NT RAS server.

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QUESTION:
I have a phone system that needs to let it ring at least twice before answering. Is there any way I can control how many rings occur before my RAS server answers a client call?
I have a US Robotics Sportster 14400 modem handling my calls.  Supposedly, an ATS0=2 command should do what I want but where can I enter this command?

ANSWER:
Edit your MODEM.INF file in the \systemroot\SYSTEM32\ras directory. Search for the
section [US Robotics Sportster 14400], and change the ATS0= entry to 2 or 3.

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QUESTION:
I'm having problems being authenticated on the network after using RAS to connect from my home computer.
On my computer at home, the computer name is \\HOME and my user name is greg. 
When I start RAS from home and contact the office I can logon as Administrator, Greg, or
Guest and all three give me an Access Denied message when I try to access a share on the office computer. The office computer name is \\GREG.  The three above user accounts all exist on the \\GREG computer which is running RAS Administrator. Why am I getting this message?

ANSWER:
What is happening is that after logging into your local computer, your local credentials are being cached and used when you are trying to access your network. The RAS authentication does not override your cached credentials. Follow the steps below for explanation.

What's Happening:
1.  You logon locally to your computer at home. Your computer name is home, your user name is greg, and your password is password. (ex. \\HOME\greg password)
2.  Using RAS, you dial into your corporate network. An authentication dialog box appears and you supply your RAS logon credentials. Your domain name is corp, your user name on the domain is greg, and your password is password. (ex. \\CORP\greg password)
3.  The connection succeeds and you then try to connect to a computer in the domain, for example, your office computer \\GREG. This is where you get an Access Denied message.

Why:
The reason is that in step two above, your RAS logon does not log you onto the network. It only verifies that you are allowed physical access to the network. Therefore, here is the situation:
You are logged on locally as \\HOME\greg password. These credentials are cached and used for all resource access locally and on the network. When you dialed into the network using RAS, your cached creditials did not change. Therefore, when you try to connect to a resource on the network, you give it:
\\HOME\greg password and it is expecting \\CORP\greg password. 

Two Possible Solutions:
1.  In step three above, when you are tying to connect to a computer on the network, provide your network creditials to override your local creditials. For example, at a DOS prompt, you would type
NET USE * \\GREG\PUBLIC /U:CORP\GREG. Or, in File Manager, in the Network Connect Drive dialog box, you would type CORP\GREG in the Connect As box. 

2.  You can join the domain from home. This causes your domain creditials to be cached on your home computer. To do this, have an Administrator add the name of your computer at home, \\HOME, to the domain and change your workgroup or domain name to corp. Then, follow the steps described in the online Help topic "Joining a Domain."

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QUESTION:
When I run NetDDE on my Windows NT Server version 3.5, I cannot chat with anyone
who logs into my server via RAS or see their computer even if they have connected to a drive
on my computer. 

ANSWER:
Have the person you are trying to talk to start CHAT on their computer, then connect to them, or refer to the section above "Using Winchat with RAS". 

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QUESTION:
When I connect to my local Internet host I use a script file to logon. But, when the script is finished I still have to manually press the Done button at the bottom of the window.
How can I automate this? It would be nice if some command in the script file could signal
"DONE", that way I could easily run a batch file via the AT service that would start a RAS 
connection and get my mail and news in the middle of the night, etc.

ANSWER:
There is no way to do this with terminal.  You can however, write a script that bypasses terminal and automates your logon. Once you have that working, you can use RASDIAL.EXE with the AT command. For more information about scripting, see the online Help topics about writing scripts.

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QUESTION:
RAS gives the possibility to manage modem pooling connections, but I also need a dial-out service for Windows NT Server, like in NetWare Connect. Can you suggest a way?

ANSWER:
There is a Third-party modem pooling solution available for Windows NT, called Spartacom SAPS. You can reach Spartacom at Tel: [phone] or Fax: [phone].

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QUESTION:
My RAS server presently uses DHCP to provide IP addresses to remote clients. If I understand 
the protocol correctly, this means that a large number of RAS sessions could exhaust the DHCP pool space, as the lease period is three days, and 'used' IP addresses do not get returned to the pool until after the three days are up.
For example if I had two RAS ports, eight DHCP addresses in the pool, and nine different
users accessed the server via RAS during one day, wouldn't the ninth find that there were no free IP address to allocate?
Is it therefore more prudent to use the static IP pool facility of RAS rather than DHCP, or is there something I have missed?

ANSWER:
For your two port server, you will only use three IP addresses: two for RAS clients and one for the server.  When a client calls in, it is given an IP address.  When the client hangs up, that address is returned to the RAS server for use with the next client.  So, no matter how many clients call in, at most you will use three addresses on your two port server at any given time.

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QUESTION:
My LAN consists of one Novell 3.12 server and one Windows NT Server version 3.5. I would like to be able to remotely administer the Windows NT Server computer like I can using Rconsole in Novell.

I am going to be on the road much of the year and would like to be able to dial back into my Windows NT Server computer and troubleshoot remotely from my home computer or from my notebook computer like I can with Novell. I have talked with my local vendor and they have come back with the suggestion to install Windows NT Server version 3.5 on my home system and through RAS dial into my office server. Is this possible and is this the best way to do it?

ANSWER:
You do not need to install Windows NT Server on your home computer, you can do remote administration with Windows NT Workstation. If you install RAS on your office computer, you can then run RAS from the laptop to connect to it and do remote administration. 

For more information refer to the QUESTION and ANSWER section above which discusses an answer to your question in more detail.

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QUESTION:
I'm getting the following Administrator Alert message from my Primary Domain Controller (PDC):
"Failed to authenticate with <UNKNOWN>, a Windows NT Domain Controller for
domain SITE2."

\\NTPDC is my primary domain controller at work and \\SITE2 is the domain controller at a second site.  They are set up to allow dial-in access from one to the other.  They both run Windows NT Server version 3.5.  What is this message trying to say and why does it occur hourly?

ANSWER:
The alert is telling you that one domain controller tried to connect with the other domain controller
to sync up the accounts, but the second domain controller could not be reached.
If you have a trust relationship between the two, and they are only connected via RAS, 
then you will get this alert when the connection is not active.

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QUESTION:
Can I configure my Windows NT Server version 3.5 as a SLIP server for Windows for Workgroups clients? If so, what
do I need to do on the Windows NT Server side? What software will I need on the Windows for Workgroups client side?

ANSWER:
RAS is configurable as a PPP server, not as a SLIP server.  Unless there is a strong reason for using SLIP, just use the RAS that ships with Windows for Workgroups to connect to the Windows NT RAS server.
If you need IP instead of NetBEUI, use a third party PPP package on the Windows for Workgroups computer to give you PPP access.

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QUESTION:
We have an Windows NT Server computer for our Windows for Workgroups clients. Is there a way for a Windows for Workgroups client to dial out
on the modem on the Windows NT Server using software like QuickLinks or Procom? Windows NT
is great for dialing in using RAS to connect to our network, but we need to share the modem at
the Windows NT Server to dial out from our workstations to access various BBSs or CompuServe.

ANSWER:
You will need to install a modem pooling package in order for this to work. You can use Spartacom software for this. Spartacom can be reached at Tel: [phone] or Fax: [phone].

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QUESTION:
I have the call waiting service on my line at home - if someone calls me and my line is engaged then they are asked to wait and I get a gentle beep to tell me someone is waiting. This is a great idea for voice communication but my line goes down during data communication. I manually de-activate call waiting by phoning #43#. Can I automate this using RAS? I use RAS and Microsoft MSMail to connect to the office system from home.

ANSWER:
Add #43# to the beginning of the phone number Remote Access dials.

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QUESTION:
After I modified the AutoDisconnect entry to five minutes, I restarted the computer, connected to our Internet Service Provider, and waited.  Ten minutes later the connection was still up. Maybe the ISP is pinging us? Or maybe the RAS AutoDisconnect feature just does not work?

ANSWER:
The RAS autodisconnect feature is tested regularly, and does work. Watch Remote Access Monitor to see if any packets are being sent. Just one packet will reset the idle disconnect timer to 0.
The autodisconnect is a Windows NT Server feature only. A RAS client does not autodisconnect.

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QUESTION:
1) We have a Windows NT Server computer connected to a Novell network. We are using a
client/server package which communicates via IPX (NWIPXSPX.DLL), Gupta SQLBase
and a SQLWindows client application. We want clients to be able to use RAS to get to the Windows NT
Server computer, but also be able to hit the SQLBase NLM with an IPX protocol. Is this
possible?

2) Currently, RAS clients have a wide selection of COM ports to choose from.
Are there plans for RAS clients to use a NASI or network modem pool as their modem?
If so, how do we do this?

ANSWER:
1.) Have your RAS clients dial in using IPX.  They should then be able to access your IPX applications. Windows NT Workstation and Windows 95 RAS clients support IPX.

2.) There are plans for RAS to support modem pools in a future release. For now, you can use a package like SpartaCom for modem pooling on Windows NT.  You can reach Spartacom at Tel: [phone] or Fax: [phone].

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QUESTION:
I am having a problem with my Hayes modem and RAS. Although I can connect to various 
locations with RAS without any problems, it normally takes a good ten or fifteen seconds to
hang up the modem (when selecting hang-up or exiting RAS completely).
I don't know if this is a RAS problem, modem problem or Windows NT problem. Has anyone
experienced this problem and, if so, can a remedy be given?

ANSWER:
In MODEM.INF, set the S3 value in the INIT string for your modem to something low like 1. 

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QUESTION:
I have two Windows NT computers running RAS. One is running TCP/IP and is connected to the
Internet. The other Windows NT computer is on an isolated LAN. From this computer, I want to be able to connect to the first computer and access the Internet.
Does my second Windows NT computer need an IP address that will be recognized on
the Internet, or is the first Windows NT computer the one that actually communicates on the
Internet? When I am connected to the first Windows NT computer will I be a part of its subnet, or will I need my own subnet?

ANSWER:
See documentation in the Windows NT 3.5 Resource Kit on how to make this work.