Cleaning up Network Neighborhood

[Thomas Cameron]

This is because of browse masters.  MS has defined several types of
browse masters.  It works like this:

The first Windows (we'll use Win98 as an example) PC that boots on a
network broadcasts a request for a browse master.  Since it's the first
machine, no one answers.  So, the PC calls an election.  It wins that
election (obviously).

The next Win98 PC boots up, and broadcasts for a browse master.  The
first Win98 box claims that duty.  The second one says something to the
effect of, "I am the same OS as you are, so I have just as much right to
be a browse master" and calls for an election.  I'm not kidding.  These
two duke it out for a while.  Since the OS's are equal, the tie breaker
is a combination of factors like uptime and a random number generated
based on hostname or somesuch nonsense.  Once the election is won, the
browse master keeps a list of all the PCs in the workgroup, along with
their address (IP, IPX, or NetBEUI - only IP is important to us). 
Therefore, whenever any other machine in the workgroup needs to find a
computer, it can ask the master browser, instead of broadcasting
queries.

So now, let's say a WinNT workstation boots up.  It broadcasts, gets the
browse master info, and says "I'm bigger than you, I call an election." 
WinNT gets extra votes in the election, so it wins.  Now it is the
master browser.

Windows NT Server has a higher OS level (more votes) than NT
workstation, and NT server acting as a domain controller has a higher OS
level than a plain old NT Server.  The PDC has the highest level of all
- it will always win elections against other Windows boxes.

The rub is, there is more than one type of master browser.  There is a
master browser for each workgroup.  There is also a master browser for
each subnet.  This means that if you have 5 workgroups on a LAN, you
could have 5 workgroup masters, PLUS another master browser for the LAN
subnet.

Also, there is the domain master browser.  All other master browsers
report back to this guy.

This long-winded explanation is made to explain why you have phantom
workgroups.  All of these master browsers report the computer names they
know about to each other periodically.  So, as long as any of the browse
masters are up, they will keep passing the phantom workgroup name back
and forth, even if there are no hosts in the workgroup.  The only way
I've found to make this go away is to literally shut down all the
computers on the network simultaneously.

There are registry hacks you can push to your windows boxes to turn off
the ability to be a browse master.  I heartily recommend you only allow
certain machines to be browse masters.  I usually turn off the
capability on all client PCs, and only let the servers handle browse
master duties.

Hope this makes it more clear.
Thomas Cameron, RHCE, MCSE, MCT, CNE

Dave Brodin wrote:
> 
> I couldn't find anything like this in the archives, although it must be
> there.  We are running Samba 2.0.7 on RedHat Linux 6.0 using Windows 95
> clients.
> 
> Our Network Neighborhood is filled with workgroups that no longer
> exist.  In some cases, someone connected with a laptop that was in a
> certain workgroup and it was added to the list of our workgroups.  Even
> that that person has been gone for almost a year, the workgroup still
> remains in the list.  If you try to open the workgroup, there are always
> errors because there is nothing in the workgroup anymore.
> 
> How do you clean up the list of workgroups?  Do they ever time out?  I
> tried editing browse.dat and wins.dat, but the workgroups just keep
> reappearing.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> --
> Dave Brodin
> Systems Engineering Manager
> Information and Technology Services
> City of Bloomington
> 
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