Setting up Linux box as WINS client

Charles Lacour Clacour at greyhound.com
Tue Dec 5 22:00:26 GMT 2000


I'll give some background in a sec, but briefly:

How do I set up a Linux box to register itself with a WINS server (running on NT and completely outside my control) so that other boxes on our network can refer to it by name (rather than the changing IP address that comes from DHCP)? I do not want to log into the NT box, have it authenticate me or do anything whatsoever other than record my hostname and IP address, and tell people that information when they ask for it.

My apologies if this has already been covered somewhere -- I spent about six hours trying to find an answer, and didn't succeed.

Our DNS is run on NT because the network adminstrator believes that Windows' WINS software interfaces with it better than anything comparable on Unix. (I don't share this opinion, but the situation is not going to change in the foreseeable future.) When a Windows box (95/98/NT) connects to the network, it gets an IP address from DHCP, and apparently registers with the WINS server so that the rest of the our network can refer to it by name. (My NT box, for example is "tsg_clacour". Regardless of what my IP address happens to be at the moment, that name will get that box.)

I'm trying to set up a Linux box to do the same thing.  I originally expected this to be a specific package, like dhcpcd is for DHCP. I couldn't find anything that would register one's box with a WINS server. I found a lot of references to Samba, and it kind of looks like one should be able to use pieces of Samba to do this, but I was unable to find any instructions for it, and Samba is... large. Larger than I have time pick up right now, so I thought I'd ask some of the people who have already invested that time for whatever reason.

If possible, I'd like a "recipe", i.e. a step-by-step list. I'll take whatever I can get, though. <g>

For what it's worth (and as a starting point):

I set the "wins server" to the name (DNS name, not IP address) of the WINS server in the /etc/smb.conf
I started nmbd.  It runs, and doesn't complain, but my box isn't registered.  Since this is a production environment, I was afraid to experiment too much further -- having a new PDC pop up and start fighting for control is NOT likely to make me popular.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Charles Lacour
Unix Sysadmin, Greyhound Lines 





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