From 4b268298cc24acdcb08a4624d7b7695a565e810e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: oliverschmidt Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:38:05 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Added infos on Vista loopback connection handling. --- cpu/native/net/README-WPCAP | 19 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+) diff --git a/cpu/native/net/README-WPCAP b/cpu/native/net/README-WPCAP index 05717b0f8..0fd1c83aa 100644 --- a/cpu/native/net/README-WPCAP +++ b/cpu/native/net/README-WPCAP @@ -24,3 +24,22 @@ approach often described as IP-Aliasing was primarily choosen because it avoids putting the network interface into promiscuous mode. The major benefit of this is the compatibility with WLAN interfaces - which mostly come with Windows device drivers incapable of promiscuous mode. + +The WinPcap library works fine with the 'Microsoft Loopback Adapter' so it's +easy to have a Contiki network application running on Windows communicate with +the local Windows instance for testing purposes - and monitor the communication +with Wireshark. + +Windows Vista however tries to identify networks by the MAC address of the +default router. If that fails the network is defined as an 'Unidentified +Network' and thus classified as 'Public Network' resulting in very strict +firewall settings. As there's no default router for a loopback interface the +interface is always considered as a public network - which is kind of the +opposite of the actual situation ;-) + +Instead of fiddling with the firewall settings for 'Public Networks' (or even +turning the firewall completely off) there's a clean solution which defines the +loopback interface as not a true network interface that connects to a network. +This results in generally deactivating both the network identification process +and the firewall for the loopback interface. The details are available at +http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1960546