Disappearing clients in WINS list

[Dieter Rothacker]

Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> 
> couple of suggestions.
> 
> 1) up the "os level" parameter to at least a value of 4, but make sure
> that the one with "domain master = yes" has the highest os level (no more
> than 255!!!)
> 
> 2) run nmbd with nice --20 nmbd
> 
> 3) make sure that you have at least 600 to 800k _per user_ on each
> samba server.  do a ps -aux | grep smbd | wc, and multiply the number of
> lines by 0.8 to get the amount of memory your server should have, at least.
> 
> let me know what happens.  i have one other suggestion that will require
> config of your w95 machines...
> 
> luke
> 
> On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Dieter Rothacker wrote:
> 
> > Hi !
> >
> > I have a problem with Samba WINS-clients diappearing from the
> > browse-list of my Samba WINS-server.
> >
> > Connected to the WINS server are 4 subnets (one C-class net) with Win95,
> > WinNT and Samba clients (around 70 clients are online). The problem
> > occurred when new (perhaps misconfigurated) Windows-clients were
> > attached.
> >
> > Suddenly some of the Samba boxes disappear out of the network
> > neighbourhood and the brose list of the WINS server, although the
> > server has their name<00>, name<03> and name<20> in its wins.dat.
> >
> > I am in the same subnet with my Windows box, and a "nbtstat -a" gives
> > for the WINS server (samba 1.9.17p3):
> >
> > ROUTER100      <00>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > ROUTER100      <03>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > ROUTER100      <20>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > .__MSBROWSE__.<01>  GROUP       Registered
> > WORKGROUP      <00>  GROUP       Registered
> > WORKGROUP      <1B>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > WORKGROUP      <1D>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > WORKGROUP      <1E>  GROUP       Registered
> >
> > and for the disappeared WINS client (samba 1.9.17p3):
> >
> > DODO           <00>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > DODO           <03>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > DODO           <20>  UNIQUE      Registered
> > WORKGROUP      <00>  GROUP       Registered
> > WORKGROUP      <1E>  GROUP       Registered
> >
> > Evrything seems okay, I do not have a clue why it does not appear.
> >
> > Restarting the clients' nmbd makes them show up again.
> >
> > None of the Windows clients disappear, so it seems to be a samba bug ?

1) I did that ( see my smb.conf below )
2) I will try that.
3) No problem. The machine which acts as WINS server has no shares, and
   is only used for maintaining a cross-subnet browse list and TCP/IP &
   IPX router. It will soon become a full firewall, and therefor will do
   no file serving.
   The samba box that disappeared is a 64MB ftp/nfs/samba without an X
   server, so that should be also enough.

I believe that the problem is one of the W95 clients (of course :-)),
but I wonder why samba does not re-register at the WINS server ?

Here is the smb.conf of the WINS server:
(a.b.c.0 is subnetted into 4 parts, and x.y.z.0 is the connection to
the university backbone)
[global]                                                                     
   server string = WINS Domain
Master                                           interfaces =
a.b.c.62/255.255.255.192 a.b.c.126/255.255.255.192
a.b.c.190/255.255.255.192 a.b.c.251/255.255.255.192 x.y.z.251/25
5.255.255.0                                                                    
allow hosts = x.y.z.250, a.b.c.   
   workgroup = WORKGROUP                    
   printing = bsd      
   printcap name = /etc/printcap
   load printers =
no                                                       
   guest account =
nobody                                                       read
prediction = yes                                                       
getwd cache =
yes                                                            socket
options = TCP_NODELAY                                                 os
level =
100                                                              
preferred master =
yes                                                       local master =
yes                                                           domain
master = yes                                                         
wins support =
yes                                                           dns proxy
= no                                                              
encrypt passwords = no
 
Here is the smb.conf of the disappeared samba box:
(I stripped the services part, I think it is not important)
[global]                                                                 
   interfaces = a.b.c.254/255.255.255.192
   server string = Didi's Archiv (running Samba)                         
   allow hosts = x.y.z.250, a.b.c.               
   printing = bsd                                                        
   printcap name = /etc/printcap                                         
   load printers = no                                               
   lock directory = /var/lock/samba                                      
   preserve case = yes                                                   
   short preserve case = yes                                             
   character set = iso8859-1                                             
   valid chars = 229:197 228:196 246:214 252:220 233:201                 
   share modes = yes                                                     
   max log size = 50                                                     
   wins server = a.b.c.251                                         
   wins support = no                                                     
   workgroup =
WORKGROUP                                                   
   browse list = no                                                      
   domain master = no                         
   preferred master = no                      
   local master = no                          
   os level = 0                               
   getwd cache = yes                          
   read prediction = yes                      
   socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY
   dead time = 1                              

-- 
Dieter Rothacker, Student of computer science

TMTOWTDI, and the other ones are always better !