How do I access my samba drive through several layers of network topology?

Question

I have a new windows 7 Home Premium machine that is in a different room than my main computer area. As such I have to use a bridge and another router. Everything is working wonderfully except I cannot access the SAMBA drive with the new machine. I know that SAMBA is accessible as an older WinXP machine can access it. A picture of my network would probably be helpfull:

            To ISP
              |
+---------------------------+
|            WAN            |
|        Cable Modem        |
|        (2WIRE678)         |
+---------------------------+
              |
+---------------------------+ (|) .  .  . (|) +-----------+
|      Belkin Router        |  |           |  |  Wireless |
|          (F5D)            |--+           +--|   WinXP   |
+---------------------------+                 |SAMBA USER |
      |           |  |  |                     +-----------+
+------------+    |
|  Ubuntu    |    |
|  Apache +  |    |
|SAMBA Server|    |
+------------+    |
                  |
+---------------------------+
|       Netgear Bridge      |
|         (XET1001)         |
+---------------------------+
              #
              #
+---------------------------+
|       Netgear Bridge      |
|         (XET1001)         |
+---------------------------+
               |
+---------------------------+
|      D-Link Router        |
|         (DI-524)          |
+---------------------------+
      |          |  |  |
+-----------+
|   Win7    |
|SAMBA USER?|
+-----------+

More interesting data points:

• I can ping the SAMBA server from the Win7 machine locally (Ie. 192.168.2.2)

• I can access the webserver from the Win7 machine locally (Ie. 192.168.2.2)

• I followed the advice to get Win7 and SAMBA to play nice: http://www.tannerwilliamson.com/2009/09/windows-7-seven-network-file-sharing-fix-samba-smb/

Sorry for being so long winded but it is kind of complex and I am really at a loss as to how to fix it. If any of you have some suggestions I would love to hear it!

Answer 1

A router is used to join two separate networks (IP subnets); the wireless bridge you're using to link two rooms sans cable are linking two parts of the same logical network, not two separate networks.

Thus, replace the D-Link router with a switch. The second layer of NAT (referred to as "double NAT") introduced by the D-Link router is going to cause you all manner of hard-to-troubleshoot connectivity issues between the Windows 7 machine and the outside world (and the D-Link's single NAT is probably what's killing the SMB).

This way, the equipment in the second room will be connected identically as though you tore out the wireless bridges and D-Link router and plugged the Windows 7 machine into your main router.

FYI: There are several (seven, actually) layers of network topology, and your wireless bridges are operating at level 1; they are only replacing the physical cable. Layer 2, Ethernet frames, are going from one side of the bridge to the other unmodified. Everything at higher levels (like level 3, IP addresses) are also unmodified.

Also make sure the cable modem is only a modem and not a router as well; if it's also a router, see if you can disable its router bits and just pass a single non-RFC1918 address through with no NAT. (This has no bearing on your question, just another potential improvement I spotted.)