[cifs-protocol] Printer Browsing Problem

[Gerald (Jerry) Carter]

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Neil Goodenough wrote:

| I am trying to fix a printer browsing problem and
| I am finding it difficult to get any real information
| on how it is implemented. Can anyone point me to
| any documentation on how printer browsing works?

Why browsing mechanism?  There are several.  Netbios browsing,
there's the AddPrinter(level 1) Win32 api call.  The print
server bit in election packets, etc....

| I have Ethereal traces of both working and
| slow browsing. The difference I can see between
| the two scenarios is:
|
| Working system:
| 1. Contact a BDC of a list of systems hosing printer shares.
| 2. Contact one of these systems with Enumprinters level 1
| and a buffer size of zero
| 3. Get response specifyng the correct buffer size to use
| 4. Repeat step 2 with appropriate buffer size
| 5. Recieve a list of some printer details
| 6. Display list of hosts plus details of some printers
|
| Slow system:
| 1. Contact a BDC of a list of systems hosing printer shares.
| 2. Contact one of these systems with Enumprinters level
| 1 and a buffer size of zero
| 3. Get response specifyng Invalid Name
| 4. Repeat 2 & 3 for every printer hosting a share
| 5. After every host has been contacted, the list of
| hosts that have a shared printer is displayed,
| with no details of actual printers.
|
| The session setup and Tree Connect packets in both working and slow
| scenarios appear similar. I have examples of both using both anonymous and
| named credentials.
|
| The problem stayed with us for ten days and then went away.
| The day before the problem went away, I found and fixed
| an IPX problem on the (Windows NT) PDC. At startup, it
| was doing RIP broadcasts on a valid ipx network but
| using an incorrect frame type. I set the correct frame type
| and network address manually. I identified that the
| ipx problem had been occuring for at least one week before
| the slow browsing problem appeared. We do not route IPX.

If you are supporting IPX and TCP/IP on the DC, you might
want to check the bindings.  If you can disable NetBIOS
over IPX, that might help.

| Although the NT Browser White Paper does say how
| shared printers are registered, I can't find anything
| in any of these documents that explains the how the
| browsing process is implemented. In particular, what
| does that 'invalid name' response indicate?

Is it INVALID_PRINTER_NAME?  or invalid machine name?
Can you send me the traces?








cheers, jerry
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