Browsing across subnets without WINS

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 11:07:08AM -0600, Christopher R. Hertel wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 10:06:39AM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 09:30:18AM -0500, Alex @ Avantel wrote:
> :
> > > No need to - been there, done that, it works.  The limitation is still the 
> > > same - IF there is only one samba server on a subnet, THEN there can only
> > > be one workgroup on the subnet or browsing will break accross the WAN.

> Huh!?

> No, you can have multiple workgroups on the subnet.  The LMBs on the
> subnet should exchange browse lists for their workgroups.  That's how the
> browse lists get merged.  The LMBs then upload the combined lists to their
> respective DMBs.

> I would believe that there *could* be bugs in the browse list merger, but
> I would need to see packet traces to believe it is real--and then I'd
> still need to study those traces to find out whose bug it really is.  I
> have seen odd behavior from Windows (eg. some versions of Windows get the
> announcement period wrong in the HostAnnounce messages...things like
> that).

> The point is, though, that to have multiple workgroups you need to have 
> multiple LMBs.

The problem comes from using Win9x as an LMB, since Win9x does NOT do its
job of exchanging browse lists with the DMB.

You do also need to have some 'exchange point' -- a subnet with
representatives (functional LMBs) of the various workgroups.  Without
that, the MS browsing protocols give no way to find out who's in those
other workgroups.  So indeed, if you have a configuration where each
remote site represents a workgroup, or the only shared subnets are
running stupid Win9x machines, it becomes difficult to move between
the workgroups without investing in some hardware for a number of LMBs at
one of the sites.  This can be done with a single Unix machine, though,
running multiple discrete copies of nmbd on different IPs -- I haven't
seen anyone do *that* with Windows yet. :)

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/attachments/20030319/590ef974/attachment.bin