I ran into the same problem and found if I disabled the firewall everything worked fine but I wanted the firewall up. With a little searching I found:

http://www.tweakhound.com/linux/samba/page_1.htm

Followed the directions and everything is working and the firewall is up.

SinSpinr, that link looks pretty nice and contains a lot of info, but if indeed, there is still no way to browse the workgroup, I don't think I'll be sticking to SuSEfirewall.

I'll give it a few more days. By the way, I'm connected to the correct workgroup now. No idea what's going on.

apachedude, I think you're past the firewall problem and into something else now. I know you said you've got a lan cable connected, but is there any chance that your PC might also contain a wireless NIC?

The reason I ask is that I seen several reports of people using 9.3 that have both wired and wireless interfaces installed and Suse is having some trouble deciding which one to use. There are workarounds for the problem but that kind of situation could give you the symptoms you described.

I'm not at my Linux machine now but my fatally flawed memory suggests that either a "ifconfig" command in a terminal window or a look in Yast ->Network-> Wireless might tell you if there is a wireless NIC that Suse is talking to.

Hopefully ghight will jump back in here if I've got it wrong.

I've found the problem with my network. In fact, I am connected to a wireless network, but not the one in my room.

I have the CAT cable in, but apparently, the wireless gets priority over the wired connection. This is a concern for me, because the wireless has connected automatically, and I don't know how to disable it. I understand that connecting to someone else's unencrypted network can be illegal, so this would prevent me from using SuSE.

Can anyone tell me how to configure my network to use the following interfaces in descending priority?
1) Ethernet port
2) USB port
3) Wireless?

Perhaps this belongs in another post, and if I get poor response to this, I'll repost in another thread. For now, I'll have to use Windows to avoid any potential problems with connecting to another person's wireless network.

This should fix you up apachedude.
Configuring dual LAN/WLAN
The principals described there should apply to USB as well.
Alternately, you can simply use Yast to disable the interfaces that you don't intend to use.

Thanks, bigchris. I'll try it, and hopefully it'll work.

USB: should I use on cable connection or hotplug?

I'm still unsure how SuSE knows to use the LAN over the WLAN if both are available, but I'll try it anyway. Again, thanks for the help.

If you're plugging anything into the USB ports you'll want to use hotplug so the device will be recognized when you plug it in. It really shouldn't matter unless you plug a USB modem in there because only something like that has anything to do with networking.

What is supposed to happen is that Suse is supposed to prioritize the interfaces giving first choice to cable so even if a wireless signal is present it should be ignored if the LAN cable is active.

I've don't remember seeing the USB port considered as a network port in earlier Suse releases so I don't know how it is prioritized but if nothing capable of networking is plugged it shouldn't give you any trouble. Maybe there's more in the Suse Help pages.

On my laptop the wireless simply wouldn't connect to anything unless I manually brought down my wired NIC card, so you are getting something different then what I've experienced.

If it were me, I would put any wireless cards as 'manual' and bringing them up as you need them with Kinternet. This would be especially true if you have put so much effort into wanting to secure these boxes.

For the benefit of all the Suse users here, I you request that we continue this as a new thread. It will be easier to find for the next person who has the same issue. Just a suggestion.

Apachedude, I agree with ghight on opening a new thread if you continue to have problems with this.

Just for fun I tried to replicate your setup on another computer using the 9.3 Live Eval DVD. I didn't even come close. Live Eval found the NIC in the motherboard just fine but didn't include the USB ports among the Network Devices. I even had a wireless NIC plugged into a USB Port and that wasn't seen either. I think that's a little advanced for Linux right now but I keep hoping. I'll also mention that Live Eval didn't set up sound either although it did correctly identify the SB Live 5.1 sound card. I guess the "net" is that Live Eval is ok for demonstrating Linux but not much good for mocking up a full installed distro. Nice try but no cigar.

The SuSEFirewall2 update has been released on the YOU servers. It's an optional update, but I would recommend getting it. Then you could undo the hack and retry my original recommendation.

Thanks! It hasn't shown up on my mirror yet but I'll keep an eye out for it and let you know how it goes.

Ghight, thank you very much not only for looking at the thread, but for taking the effort to report the problem to SuSE as well. I'm very impressed.

Thanks, but I had nothing to do with getting this particular issue fixed. I am in the process of having the Samba functionality corrected without the manual hacks however. If that ever gets fixed, then I'll be equally impressed!

Thanks again. If you have anymore SuSE related networking questions, post them here. I'm always hanging around.