Network Authentication

11 Dec 2006 1:32 PM

Marc Livingstone

I have recently started an MCDST course and have been getting to grips with
Workgroups. I have just networked 2 pc's in my home and was practicing
sharing folders. I have set up the same user accounts on each machine as is
required for authentication over the network and everything seems to be
working fine, but it never asks for a password from any of the accounts when
authenticating over the network. It just authenticates straight in. Is this
right? Shouldn't it bring up the login dialogue box everytime you try to
access shared files. It certainly does when I change the password on the
target machine, so maybe I'm expecting something that shouldn't happen anyway.

11 Dec 2006 1:47 PM

Malke

Marc Livingstone wrote:

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> I have recently started an MCDST course and have been getting to grips
> with
> Workgroups. I have just networked 2 pc's in my home and was
> practicing
> sharing folders. I have set up the same user accounts on each machine
> as is required for authentication over the network and everything
> seems to be working fine, but it never asks for a password from any of
> the accounts when
> authenticating over the network. It just authenticates straight in.
> Is this
> right? Shouldn't it bring up the login dialogue box everytime you try
> to
> access shared files. It certainly does when I change the password on
> the target machine, so maybe I'm expecting something that shouldn't
> happen anyway.

The behavior you're seeing is correct. Your expectations are incorrect.
In a Workgroup (peer-to-peer networking), authentication is done
locally. When a request for a resource comes in from UserA on a remote
machine, the machine with the resource looks at its "list" and sees
that UserA has an account on its system with the correct permissions to
access that particular resource. The request is granted so no dialog
box is displayed because none is needed. This is how it works in XP
Pro.

XP Home only authenticates as Guest so if you have two XP Home machines
that could also be why you are seeing that behavior. With XP Home, if
you share files/folders, you share to everyone.

Do some reading here:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/network_protocols.htm
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/filesharing.htm (Home)
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm
(Pro)
http://www.bcmaven.com/networking/faq.htm
http://www.bcmaven.com/networking/myths.htm
http://www.tomsnetworking.com
http://www.wown.info/
http://www.ezlan.net/index.html
http://www.howtonetworking.com/default.htm
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/

Malke

--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

11 Dec 2006 1:55 PM

Hans-Georg Michna

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:32:00 -0800, Marc Livingstone <Marc
Livingst***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I have recently started an MCDST course and have been getting to grips with
>Workgroups. I have just networked 2 pc's in my home and was practicing
>sharing folders. I have set up the same user accounts on each machine as is
>required for authentication over the network and everything seems to be
>working fine, but it never asks for a password from any of the accounts when
>authenticating over the network. It just authenticates straight in. Is this
>right? Shouldn't it bring up the login dialogue box everytime you try to
>access shared files. It certainly does when I change the password on the
>target machine, so maybe I'm expecting something that shouldn't happen anyway.

Same username and password on both machines? That would explain
it. That's how it's meant to be.

Also Windows keeps the connection going. You only have to
authenticate once in a session.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

11 Dec 2006 2:18 PM

Marc Livingstone

Thank you, that was a great help.