How Samba let us down

Jelmer Vernooij jelmer at nl.linux.org
Wed Oct 23 13:59:49 GMT 2002


On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 05:52:47AM -0700, Jay Ts wrote about 'Re: How Samba let us down':
> Mathew McKernan wrote:
> > > > My suggestion:
> > > > Install a WINS Server (simple 400MHz box even)
> > > > running Linux, and if you
> > > > like run an internal DNS too which is syncronised to
> > > > the WINS database using
> > > > the "wins hook" option in smb.conf. Point all your
> > > > devices' WINS addresses
> > > > to this new WINS server. You will notice a dramatic
> > > > improvement in
> > > > performance.
> > >
> > > I did try WINS in testing; I made one of the Samba
> > > servers a WINS server and pointed my workstation to
> > > it.  I didn't see other addresses caching in the Samba
> > > WINS database and often I would see "WINS server
> > > appears to be down" when using smbclient.  However, no
> > > other machines were using the WINS server, and the
> > > WINS server was not local subnet browse master, so
> > > that might have stopped me.
> > WINS will only work if every "device" on the LAN registers with the WINS
> > server. Device meaning Server, Workstation, PLCs etc.
> It may be a pain to configure all those clients, but it's certainly
> worth it.  Take a look at Microsoft's documentation (in their resource
> kits) on how various Windows versions do name resolution, and you'll
> see what I mean.
One can use DHCP to set the WINS server address for each client - see 
the docs for details.

Jelmer



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