DNS/netbios WAS: Re: New Microsoft Knowledgebase article

[Michael H. Warfield]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2000 at 04:32:10AM +1100, Michael Glauche wrote:
> "David M. Davisson" wrote:


> > Simply put, the netbios name is the name you give the computer in
> > networking properties on Windows clients or servers.  The DNS name is
> > the host name and domain name that you put in the DNS networking
> > properties.  The host name and netbios name could (M$ says should) be
> > the same.  The netbios domain name is the name of the domain that you
> > you and logon to.  The DNS domain name is the same as your registered
> > DNS domain name on ther internet.  So the confusion could be like this:
> > 
> > Host Name: PENTIUM
> > NT (netbios) domain name: COMPANY
> > DNS domain name: company.com
> > 
> > In the network neighborhood you would see the computer Pentium.  In your
> > sendmail logs, the host would be recorded as pentium.company.com.
> > 
> > As I said, simply put.  There is a lot more to this issue.  There are a
> > couple of good docs in the Samba docs on this, and there is a brief and
> > excellent explanation of netbios netowrking in the "Learn Samba in 24
> > Hours" book.  I haven't read "Using Samba" yet, but I am sure there is a
> > good explanation there too.  Once you understand how DNS and netbios
> > interact and work together, the source of a lot of those nagging little
> > network miseries becomes apparent.
> 
> Btw .. while we are at this topic :
> are there some scripts that take the netbios name from a dhcpd.leases
> file and genereate some bind config files (some A, and IN PTR records
> .) ?
> (in order to keep the DNS and netbios names in sync ...)

	I saw (had) some scripts that worked with the ISC dhcpd server
and translated to dynamic DNS updates.  Problem was that you need to
do some REALLY GOOD filtering because some of those netbios names are
ILLEGAL in DNS (names with illegal characters likes spaces, dashes, dots,
etc, etc, etc).  Then you have to decide just what to do when someone
DOES add a name with illegal characters.  It seems that the DHCP
protocol has no provisions for refusing an address because the name
is illegal.

	The "netbios name with characters that are illegal in DNS" is
going to get real amusing as chumps (uh admins) try to upgrade to
Windows 2000 and try and get everything running under DNS.  "Uh gee, I
don't know why the name 'My PC-2.3' doesn't work any more.  It worked with
Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0!"

> TIA,
>   Michael

> --
> Samba NT-Domain howto (in german)
> http://www.sambahq.de

	Mike
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