Hi
I have two pc's connected by ethernet cables to a Thomson Speedtouch 516 router. Both have NIS 2009 installed. One connects to the internet OK. The other somtimes refuses to connect. When this happens I also can't access the router from that pc, which suggests a communications issue.
I found that if I uninstalled NIS and rebooted, connection would be restored. After that I could reinstall, do live updates and it’d be ok for a bit. But then, it would all stop working again and I would have to go through the un/reinstall cycle. Sometimes this would happen months apart or it would happen on next reboot.
Having had to fix this 3 times in the last week, I contacted Symantec chat helpdesk After explaining, the tech set up a custom firewall rule on the PC to allow all communication from the router (IP 192.168.1.254). This appears to have fixed it but I’m worried that this exposes me to potential threats (as logically any interaction with the internet has to come via that IP).
I read a thread which appeared to be a similar problem to mine but was connected to whether "stealth blocked ports" was enabled or not. This didn't make a difference to my problem (disabling it didn't allow access) but a similar solution (creating a custom rule) was initially suggested for that issue too.See: http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=46041&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
In the thread it implies that creating this rule is not secure - Symantec eventually fixed that prob in a patch. Anyhow, I asked the tech if this would expose me to threats he assured me it wouldn't!
My questions;
1) Will the rule expose me to threats or not? (Conflicting advice from Norton).
2) Does anyone have any ideas what might be causing this problem? If I could fix this then I could remove the rule!
Thanks very much in advance for any help you can offer!
Psyman