Directory listing in libsmbclient.so

[Simo Sorce]

On Wed, 27 Dec 2000, Steve Langasek wrote:

> On Thu, 28 Dec 2000, Simo Sorce wrote:
>
> > Obviously a name is a name and is always possible to have a server with
> > the same name of a workgroup but in this case it is possible to address
> > the server simply prepending it's workgroup name.
>
> > Without having workgroup name in the string you may have two servers of
> > different workgroups but with the same netbios name and not have a way to
> > differentiate them !
>
> Not true.  You cannot have two machines on the same network using the same
> netbios name.  If you had two machines on the network trying to use the same
> netbios name, one of two things would happen: either one of the machines would
> take precedence over the other, and you would only be able to see one of the
> machines; or there would be conflicting netbios information on your network,
> and each attempt to do a lookup on the name would give different results.
> This is the case regardless of whether they have different workgroups, and it
> is precisely why the workgroup name is not relevant to anything other than
> browse lists and why I feel it should not be included in the URI.  It is not
> disambiguating, and it doesn't fit in the protocol://server/resource syntax of
> a URI.
>
> Scope IDs, OTOH, do allow you to give the same netbios name to multiple
> machines, so it might not be a bad idea to include support for scope, but
> that's neither here nor there.
>

Yes, that's true if you have one network!
On different networks machines may have the same NetBIOS name, but I think
in this case to address another network the server name will be a dns name
not a netbios one....

In effect workgroup is not important, but it may be simply considered
optional.

-- 
Simo Sorce - Integrazione Sistemi Unix/Windows - Politecnico di Milano
E-mail: simo.sorce at polimi.it
Tel.int: 02 2399 2425 - Fax.int. 02 2399 2451
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