"The laptop can both pull and push the data. The desktop can do neither. T issued command is:
rsync -vva --exclude=.*mozilla* --exclude=.*chromium* ~/ bmike2@192.168.0.3:/home/bmike2/;rsync -vva --exclude=.*mozilla* --exclude=.*chromium* bmike2@192.168.0.3:/home/bmike2/ ~/"
looking at your rsync command syntax, if I understand, bmike2 is your username on the desktop and the IP address for the desktop is 192.168.0.3. You have 2 rsync lines here, it appears that both are initiated from the laptop with line 1 pushing data to the desktop and the second pulling data from to the desktop.
"Nothing has been added to ufw and and my router is just the modem."
If I understand you correctly you are not going through a router (level 3 device) between yourd desktop and the laptop. in other words you have set up a point-to-point network (level 2). The Openssh default settings are desigend to be used in a standard level 3 (routed environment) While it may be possible to operate Openssh at level 2, I am not sure what changes in ssh configuration is required to use it or when it might have issues in point-to-point networking.
"So what do I do? Should I put the computers ip address in?.....
This is what I did and then I restarted the service on the desktop. But when I tried to restart it on the laptop:"
As far as the IP Addresses I was refering makeing sure you were using the correct addressing for the desktop and laptop - whatever the ifconfig lists as the inet addr: is the current IP Adress assigned to that computer.
to check if openssh is installed, running, and who is using it us the following commands on both systems:
type this to see if it is running: sudo netstat -anp | grep :22
This will tell you which IP Addresses are assigned to ssh tunnels
type: sudo ps -ef | grep sshd to find out which user(s) is logged in to ssh sessions.
Type: dpkg --get-selections | grep openssh-* to find out if Openssh is installed on the system. If it is you should see the following:
openssh-client install
openssh-server install
To install it if it isn't installed type: sudo apt-get install openssh-server