Scaling problems with Windows Clients name and address lookup

[Richard Sharpe]

Hi,

just recently it was pointed out that Windows clients do a WINS lookup
first when  trying to translate an address to a name (gethostbyaddress) and
then try a DNS lookup after that.

It was further pointed out that when doing a name to address translation
(gethostbyname), a similar thing happens.  Windows does a WINS lookup and
then when that fails, does a DNS lookup.

Now, both of these are very poor from a scaling point of view.  Every name
lookup is forced to wait for WINS to time out (I think) and transmits extra
network traffic just to do name lookups.

Now, under WINSOCK16, there are registry parameters that are supposed to
affect this:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\MSTCP\ServiceProvider\
    DnsPRiority =   2001?
    HostsPriority = 599?
    LocalPriority = 499?
    NetbtPriority = 2000?

However, these seem to have no influence on the WINSOCK32 stack (WINSOCK2).

Does anyone know of any registry settings that do affect these?



Regards
-------
Richard Sharpe, sharpe at ns.aus.com, NIC-Handle:RJS96
NS Computer Software and Services P/L, 
Ph: +61-8-8281-0063, FAX: +61-8-8250-2080, 
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