nmbd & netbios name -> many addreses

[Christopher R. Hertel]

Peter, correct me if I'm wrong.

Richard,

The scenario, as I understand it (see 
  http://us1.samba.org/listproc/samba-technical/3232.html
or any suitable mirror), is this:

A multi-homed NetBIOS system offering services (in the original case, a
Samba server) registers it's multi-homed name with a (separate) NBNS
server (in this case, Samba's nmbd).  So, we have a unique server name 
with multiple IP addresses.

An NT client tries to connect to the service, but fails.

> I am struggling to understand the problem here. On first seeing Peter's EM
> and on reading this EM, I divined the problem to be:
> 
> A multi-homed Samba server is registering itself under WINS with multiple
> IP addresses (since it has multiple IP addresses) and the WINS server is
> running on the Samba server.

Not on the same Samba server.

> A Windows NT client did a WINS lookup, got back two addresses and spat the
> dummy.

The assumption is that the NT client is failing to connect to the service 
because it doesn't know how to handle the multiple-IP reply.  We'd like 
to test this using an NT WINS server and see if we get the same results.

> However, other emails I have seen seem to suggest that people believe the
> problem is that a multi-homed NT box is being registered multiple times and
> other Windows NT clients are having problems with what nmbd returns.

Well, not a multi-homed NT box.  It would also be interesting to see if 
a Samba server vs an NT server makes a difference.  We should be able to 
see that in the WINS.DAT.

Server <--->  NBNS  <--->  Client

The Client is always an NT box.  In the situation in which the problem is 
being reported, both the Server and the NBNS are Samba.

> Can someone clarify which of the above is the case, and then I can crawl
> back into my cave.

I think I've got it right.  Peter?

> It so happens that I do have the resources to set up a multi-homed Win NT
> machine ... So I could test the second scenario, I could also test the
> first scenario.

The first to test is

Multi-homed NT Service provider <---> Samba NBNS server <---> NT Client

You should get the same error as Peter did.

Next:

Multi-homed NT Service provider <---> NT WINS server <---> NT Client

If you can do that (and pass along the NetMon traces) that'd be great!

Chris -)-----

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