Browsing across subnets without WINS

[David Collier-Brown -- Customer Engineering]

   Guys, is this an expected behavior? Unless you have WINS
up (which causes issues with multihomed machines), one
seemingly cannot synchronize browse lists across subnets.

--dave

Pedro Guedes wrote:
 > Browsing across subnets is well documented on the 2 main books
 > about Samba (the o´reilly one and the John D. Blair older
 > one - the first of  all).
 >
 > I usually do not use WINS, even on W2K because
 > it does not work correctly on multihomed servers.
 > It binds on only one interface (the primary one if one can state
 > correctly which one it is - on 99% of the cases the one on the
 > lowest PCI slot).
 > One can read a couple of white papers from microsoft stating
 > just that, I think this is due to the NetBIOS name coupled
 > to the machine in contrast to the name coupled to the IP
 > interface, even in the NeBT world.
 >
 > What I tried to do is make samba win browse master elections
 > (in subnets away from the subnet where  the PDC resides - it
 > always wins and without any local NT4 Backup Domain Controlller
 >  or W2K Domain controller) based on the idea of  the Unix server
 > being always on-line should always take the role despite the
 > presence of W98 & W2K Professional always coming and going.

 > The idea is to change browse lists with the domain master
 > browser (the PDC or FSMO on W2K) so that browsing accross
 > subnets works for everybody.
 >
 > In fact Samba becomes the master browser on the LAN due to
 > higher values on election based on the setting "os level".
 > It wins over W2K Professional (the highest Windows on the LAN).
 >
 > But ....
 > Despite settings of  "remote announce" ,"remote browse sync",
 >  entries like 192.168.5.20    ISLA#1B     in lmhosts
 > to talk to the PDC/FSMO (I known it says it only works with
 > other samba server) what the Domain Master Browser receives
 > is only the samba server itself, no neighbours listed at all.
 >
 > I have, since the early samba releases, noted this behaviour.
 >
 > So, what I do is make W2K Professional force and win browse
 > master election when it boots.
 > (look at HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\ for
 > the values
 > MaintainServerList - yes
 > IsDomaiMasterBrowser - yes
 > This way browse lists always propagate correctly to the
 > Domain Master Browser.
 >
 > This samba behaviour (or lack of it) is quite unfortunate
 > since the W2K Professionals are always coming and going making
 > subnets browsing quite unstable.
 >
 > It is strange that the samba servers have such poor behaviour
 > despite their phenomenal growth in the integration
 > Unix/Windows arena.
 >
 > A little bit more could be written about this.
 > If you have any sugestions they would be welcome.
 > This matter truly deserves an article somewhere. In O´reilly
 > web pages, on Linux/Windows Magazines.
 > Maybe a better writer than me could write a paper on it.
 >
 >
 > Pedro Guedes
 > > PORTUGAL
 > > pmg01 at netc.pt

-- 
David Collier-Brown,           | Always do right. This will gratify
Sun Microsystems DCMO          | some people and astonish the rest.
Toronto, Ontario               |
(905) 415-2849 or x52849       | davecb at canada.sun.com