Interesting Win95 behaviour if dots in NetBIOS name and name is 15 chars long

[Richard Sharpe]

Hi,

in responding to a query on the linux.samba newsgroup about not being able
to connect to a server with a NetBIOS name with dot in it, I checked out a
few things.

Because the example posted had a NetBIOS name of 15 characters with dots in
it, I tried the same, and watched what was happening with Ethereal.

I checked with pings and other things.

When I ping, Win95 sends out a DNS lookup request for the name,
this.is.my.serv, and after the timeout, then send some sort of SMBtrans
/pipe/LANMAN requests to a variety of addresses, and then, after a long
time, tries an NBNS lookup, which works.

If I try to browse the server this.is.my.serv, Win95 puts up a warning
message very quickly saying The computer or sharename could not be found.

However, if the netbios name is 14 chacters long then everything works OK.

Regards
-------
Richard Sharpe, sharpe at ns.aus.com, Master Linux Administrator :-),
Samba (Team member, www.samba.org), Ethereal (Team member, www.zing.org)
Co-author, SAMS Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours
Author: First Australian 5-day, intensive, hands-on Linux SysAdmin course