File and print sharing

[scj6771]

I have a small home network at home consisting of 4 desktops and a server, would it be wise to shut off "file and print sharing"? and if so how could I access the drives on the other clients? I use a logon script to access these drives but what good is it if I can not really access them?

[bonzai]

Go ahead and turn it on. It's your home, what do you have to worry about?

[RoyKelly]

I would reccommend that you "might" want to have File and Print sharing enabled.

The "might" depends on the answers to some questions:

• What operating system(s) are you running?
• Is the network connected to the internet?
• Is the connection a dial-up or is it an "always on" (DSL, Cable, ect) connection?
• Do you have a firewall?

The operating system of most network operating system NOS_ (Linux, Windows NT, 2000, XP proffesional, Server 2003) can have security settings increased, while desktop (Windows 95,85,ME,XP Home) cannot. This would affect my decision.

If the network is not connected to the internet, then definitly turn on File and Print sharing.

With a dial-up connection, just set passwords for the shares, and use a router for the broadband connection and set up the firewall.

If you don't have a firewall of some kind, get one! The best setup is to have both a hardware and software firewall. Don not trust the one in XP. I was hacked right trough my XP firewall.

Hardware firewalls can be breached fairly easily, just check out Gibson Research https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 and run the tests there. They can tell you how your firewall is doing, and they also have a leaktest utility to test your firewall from your side.

Hope this helps,

[scj6771]

I am running Windows 2000 server and the clients are all running Windows 2000, the reason is security as we are connected to the internet all the time (cable) also I would just like to see what other options are avaliable to me.

[scalifash]

Run a softfirewall (especially) on the server machine such as Norton Internet Security. You should also run softfirewalls on the client machines. NIS will protect the whole network if you run the internet connection through the server computer. I would never trust a hard firewall no matter what, just disable it if you've got it, they're unreliable and a big pain in the butt.