Backup browser question.

John H Terpstra jht at samba.org
Sun Nov 3 15:08:00 GMT 2002


On Sat, 2 Nov 2002, Christopher R. Hertel wrote:

> The rule of thumb, as I've seen it stated in some olde Windows95
> documentation, is that following the election of the Local Master Browser,
> one of the other Potential Browsers is selected to be a Backup Browser.
> For every 32 nodes on the subnet (how is this determined) there is supposed
> to be yet another Backup Browser.

This is correct. Certainly up to NT3.51 Microsoft maintained that NT did
the same as WfW networking in respect of Backup Master Browser / Potential
master browser behaviour.

> That's what the docs say anyway.  What I find annoying is that I cannot
> get W/NT4 to select another node as a backup browser.  This suggests that
> the "real" formula is
>
>   Backup Browser count = 0 + trunc( nodes / 32 )

No matter what, you must have at least one BMB.

PS: I recall in the WfW resource kit reading that WfW elects a BMB for
every 15 nodes. NT3.1 changed this to 1 in 32 as I recall.

>
> instead of
>
>   Backup Browser count = 1 + trunc( nodes / 32 )
>
> Thing is, I want to take a look at the protocol used to update the Backup
> Browsers from the LMB's list.
>
> Any clues anyone?

Don't know if my comments help.

- John T.

-- 
John H Terpstra
Email: jht at samba.org




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