Scaling problems with Windows Clients name and address lookup

Christopher R. Hertel crh at NTS.Umn.EDU
Tue Oct 6 18:32:57 GMT 1998


Richard,

I don't have an answer regarding registry entries.  I'll mention that this
is just the tip of the iceberg regarding scalability.  NetBIOS to DNS name
mapping simply doesn't work outside of a LAN.  Browsing gets very silly
beyond a few interconnected LANs. 

Chris -)-----

> 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, 
> Samba, Linux, Apache, Digital UNIX, AIX, Netscape, Stronghold, C, ...
> 


-- 
Christopher R. Hertel -)-----                   University of Minnesota
crh at nts.umn.edu              Networking and Telecommunications Services


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