Added firewall rules, still have DR problems

[danio]

Hello all - I've recently setup a small render farm and am having trouble allowing it through my Windows 7 firewall. I'm running Vray 2.3 and Max 2013 and I can't get my nodes to fire up unless the firewall is disabled completely on the desktop (main machine.)

I've allowed vrayspawner2013.exe through on all machines, I've made inbound + outbound exceptions for ports 20204 and 30304 (are those right? are there others?) on all machines and still no luck. The firewall is permanently disabled on the nodes since they are behind my switch and have no net access. On my desktop (main machine) I can make DR work beautifully if I disable my Public and Private firewall. So the issue seems to be the desktops firewall for sure.

My LAN is listed as public and my home wireless as private, so I thought I could maybe get away with disabling the 'public firewall.' Surprisingly this doesn't work either! I have to disable all firewall in order for it to see my nodes.

I haven't run a backburner job, but since DR works fine without a firewall it seems that's not the issue? In the Spot3d manual they say run BB if your 3dsmax dummy icon 'flashes' in your nodes taskbar, which mine does not.

Anyway, any help would be much appreciated!

Dan

[glorybound]

I have mine turned off... no more problems

[danio]

Hehe, I had considered that. Still...seems like there ought to be a way. Did you have the same trial\error as me?

[danio]

Well I think I figured it out *crosses fingers*

It had to do with the fact that I'm connecting my nodes to my desktop through an unmanaged (no DHCP) switch. Hence, Windows 7 was calling it an unidentified network with no name. This seemed to be restricting things somehow.

So the fix is you go run secpol.msc, go to 'Network List Manager Policies,' and find 'Unidentified Networks.' Change the policy there to be 'Private' for location type and 'User can change Location.' The downside of this is any unidentified network you connect to will be 'private,' but for me that's not an issue because I'm only ever connected to my LAN and my Router. Might be a bigger problem for a laptop but usually a laptop won't be administering a bunch of nodes. Still safer than no firewall I think.

Anyway - hope that helps someone! I made the same changes on my nodes, not sure if that mattered I just did it.

Cheers,

Dan

[Morne]

DHCP doesnt make a switch managed or unmanged. Most smaller switches for SOHO offices will more than likely be unmanaged.
How's your nodes getting ip addresses? Are you manually adding it, or does it get it form your router?
You need something in your network to provide ip ranges, subnets, gateways etc. In small networks this is usually the router.
If somewhere along the line 2 nodes are getting their ip settings automatically and the rest manually, then it could be that they're using a different subnet or ip range and therefore things get more complicated than what you want it to be

[danio]

Ok, thanks for the data. Right now I'm assigning the IPs manually. I set them to 192.168.1.10x. The subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 and the gateway is my desktop's IP. DNS is empty too. All these settings are administered via 'Adapter settings' in windows 7. Is there something else I'm missing?

I just ran an IPConfig just now and it confirms those settings. It also says 'DHCP Enabled: No.' Also next to the IP address it says '<Preferred>' but not sure what that means.

The router doesn't see the nodes. The router sees the desktop, and the desktop sees the switch + 2-3 nodes. At least that's my intent. I saw some talk online about how if you want DHCP working with a switch you should plug your router into it, but I don't really want to do that. It's nice to keep it simple and local.

Any thoughts appreciated, I'd like to get this setup as clean as possible.

Dan

[Morne]

Most (not all) home routers comes with 4 LAN ports. Couple of options here
Plug all your nodes directly into the router (no switch needed). Set all nodes to automatically get IP's, dns gateway etc. (inlcuding your workstation)
or use your switch and plug all nodes and your workstation into the switch and plug your switch into the router. Still all nodes and workstation get IP automatically.

It should also work the way you have it, but I think you'll get less headaches if you try one of the 2 options above.

This obviously all depends on your total network setup and how you connect to internet etc as each person's setup is different.

Check my free DR tutorial which shows 3 common setup options for small networks. Like most things, there's always an acception to a rule. Most situations have pros and cons, up to you to decide how you want things to work on your side. The link to the tutorial is in my signature. It's a bit old, but most things will still work the way I explained it

Also, before you change stuff on your side, maybe try a 3rd party firewall. Switch off windows firewall and install 3rd party one. There are various ones available. Maybe give the Kaspersky Internet Security Trial a go. It comes with its own firewall and default installation should work.

[danio]

Thanks for the info. I had actually used your tutorial to get set up initially and it was super helpful. Thanks!

The router is in the other room (no phone jack in my home office) so that's done via wireless and too far for cable connection to switch. I won't be growing this farm much (one more node is all) and my firewall IS working now and so is Vray and Vray RT. It's just that I had to change Windows treatment of 'Unidentified Networks.' But I won't be connecting to many of those cause I just have my wireless (Identified and set to 'Home') and then my LAN (Unidentified and set to 'Work.') So I don't think it's that insecure or anything? Maybe just a little hacky?

I'm currently loving VRay RT cpu using my nodes and not my desktop

Thanks for all the advice, everyone.