smb clients and performance

[Baldur Norddahl]

On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Steve Jones wrote:

> You say that this is the default behaviour.  But can this
> be configured otherwise?  If I understand correctly,
> the plan is to abandon netBEUI in order to forego the
> broadcasting of these clients.  In other words, do these
> clients *always* behave this way under NT or is there another
> mode of operation?

If you setup a WINS server (buildin samba), and configure the clients to
be P or H nodes, they will broadcast a lot less. But you can't stop them
completly from broadcasting.

> This raises another question or two (please excluse
> my ignorance).  Do MS clients such as winfile the NET
> commands in the DOS box always use netBEUI for netBIOS or
> can they use TCP/IP instead (I have a limited understanding
> of protocols used by MS)?  My understanding has been that
> netBIOS can sit atop either netBEUI *or* TCP/IP.  But, even
> if this is true, will the MS clients work that way.  More
> to the point, will they cease to continually broadcast.

Netbios can use netbeui, ipx and tcp/ip, but if you install tcp/ip on the
clients there is really no reason to keep netbeui. The clients will
broadcast equally much in a netbeui and tcp/ip setup without WINS. With
WINS there will be much less broadcast.

On the subnet I am currently on there is 160 active computers. I just
tested with tcpdump how many SMB broadcast I actually get, and found that
I got about 5 times 3 (ie. 15) broadcasts in two minuttes. This is with H
type nodes in a WINS setup.

If you wonder what alle this (B|P|H|M) type nodes is about, then read the
RFC's where you also will see why P and H gives much less broadcast
activity than the default B (broadcast) type nodes.

Baldur