Samba and WINS

[Peter Polkinghorne]

Current situation:

a) lots of Windows NT 4.0 workstation clients

b) quite a few Samba 1.9.18p10 servers running on Suns

c) 1 Samba server running as WINS server

d) NO Windows Servers

e) 1:1 correspondance between Netbios names and DNS names

f) DHCP currently tells the Windows machines the WINS server.

Problem:

If WINS server goes down, every Windows NT workstation can not mount anything 
from Samba.  This is bad for a 4 campus network.

My understanding (based on Samba docs & AEleen Frisch's book):

a) Each Windows machine will register its Netbios name - with WINS server - if 
not there could use broadcast.

b) NT workstations can be told to resolve Netbios names through DNS (ie 
through TCP Properties -> WINS).

c) The client Netbios names are not important.

Possible Solutions

a) Run NO WINS server (remove from DHCP & disable current one) & make sure all 
clients use DNS to resolve Netbios names.

b) Alternatively we could run lots of WINS servers and rely on 1:1 mapping 
between DNS & netbios to ensure no problems ... presumably could be stymied by 
bad clients or configuration goof ups.


-- 
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| Peter Polkinghorne, Computer Centre, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH,|
| Peter.Polkinghorne at brunel.ac.uk   +44 1895 274000 x2561       UK          |
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