Browsing across subnets without WINS

[David Collier-Brown -- Customer Engineering]

   Thank you, kind sir!

--dave

Christopher R. Hertel wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 18, 2003 at 07:34:45AM -0500, David Collier-Brown -- Customer Engineering wrote:
> 
>>  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.
> 
> 
> Samba's WINS does a good job of handling multi-homed systems.
> Microsoft's design for multi-homed WINS entries is ugly...but it should 
> work.
> 
> More...
> 
> 
>>--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.
>>
> 
> I have heard many reports (and seen a few traces) of bugs in W2K's WINS 
> implementation.
> 
> 
>>>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).
>>
> 
> Samba's WINS can be set to bind to which ever interfaces you like.
> 
> 
>>>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.
>>
> 
> NetBIOS names are assigned to services or applications.  Not to interfaces 
> or devices.  That's the way NetBIOS works.
> 
> So that's right in the sense that the NetBIOS name is never bound to the 
> interface.
> 
> 
>>>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.
>>
> 
> Yes, but having Samba become the *local* master browser doesn't help much.
> 
> 
>>>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.
>>
> 
> ...but the DMB can't be contacted unless you can find the name via WINS.
> 
> 
>>>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).
>>
> 
> Right.
> 
> 
>>>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.
>>
> 
> Remote Announce sends the Samba server's announcement directly to the DMB, 
> so the DMB will know about the Samba server.  That's what you are seeing.
> 
> Remote Browse Sync only works between Samba servers.
> 
> 
>>>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
>>
> 
> Samba's browsing behavior is a *superset* of Windows behavior.
> 
> 
>>>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.
>>
> 
> I am currently finishing the Browsing section of my book.  See:
>   http://ubiqx.org/cifs/Browsing.html
> 
> I'll be finishing as much as I can in the next week or so.  See also:
>   ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/drg/CIFS/cifsbrow.txt  
> 
> ...and also read the discussions of browsing parameters in the smb.conf 
> manual pages.
> 
> Basically, though Samba does a good job with browsing.  Better than many 
> Windows implementations.  The key thing is that synchronising complete 
> browse lists with a DMB will *not* work unless the LMBs know where to find 
> the DMB.  WINS is typically the way that is done.
> 
> I don't know whether adding a #1B entry to the lmhosts file will signal
> Samba that it needs to browse sync with the given entry.  If Samba is not
> aware of a WINS server it *may* not try to sync with any DMBs.  *This is
> pure supposition on my part.*  I don't know that part of the code as well
> as I should (yet).  In any case, make sure you have lmhosts name
> resulotion enabled.
> 
> I *have* seen a problem with browsing between Samba and Windows systems.  
> I was not able to resolve the problem at the time because it was a problem 
> in a computer lab at a conference and I did not have either time or 
> resources.
> 
> I think that it would help me to have a better understanding of the 
> situation above.  At this point I'm just guessing...
> 
> Chris -)-----
> 


-- 
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