smbclient server name resolution

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Mon, 24 Nov 1997 mac at nibsc.ac.uk wrote:

> David,
> 
> >Hello.  I have been looking at smbclient source code and it seems to use
> >gethostbyname first to try to resolve a server name and then tries WINS.
> 
> I have long suspected this.
> 
> There appears (from my simpleton users view) to be no consistency within
> the Samba code on name resolution.  smbclient and nmblookup can give veryt
> different answers to the same sorts of questions.
> 
> And as for what nmbd does ........

[state-based function calls, wrapped around NetBIOS packets.  i.e real-mode
multi-threading]

> I've mentioned it on this list before and had 'dns proxy = no' suggested to
> me as a fix, but I'm still running 1.9.16p11 at the moment.  I also suspect
> that this setting will make no difference to smbclient.
> 
> 
> I still believe it ought to be possible to have utterly separate and
> distinct NetBIOS and DNS namespaces on the same LAN, but I guess the Samba
> team doesn't see it that way (and it may well be for very good reasons,
> but no-one's explained them to me yet).
> 
> 
> Assuming your DHCP server hands out a (local) WINS server address, then (I
> feel) you should be able to get your MS-clients to use your local print
> server AOK.  Since smbclient uses it's own idiosyncratic way of resolving
> server names, you're probably stuck with the dial-up mess.
> 
> 
> Come on Samba team.  Build a single universal NetBIOS resolver module and
> use it consistenly across the whole Samba product.  Put in the ability for
> it to use the DNS as a _backup_ service if neccesary, but make that a
> turn-offable option.  Please.

may i recommend reading of rfc1001.txt, appendix B (B1 - Implementation
Models).

samba is implemented as a stand-alone system (model 1).  actually what is 
required is that WINS is integrated into all unix systems: DNS is, 
therefore so should NetBIOS (NetBIOS is based on DNS).

yes, smbclient and nmblookup name->ip resolution needs sorting out.  if 
you send in a patch to samba-bugs, we'll put it in, ok?

best regards,

luke


<a href="mailto:lkcl at switchboard.net"  > Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton  </a>
<a href="http://mailhost.cb1.com/~lkcl"> Samba Consultancy and Support </a>