Samba and WINS

[Florian G. Pflug]

On Wed, Dec 16, 1998 at 04:30:36AM +1100, Peter Polkinghorne wrote:
> 
> 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.
Well.. WINS is somehow equvalent to DNS, and if your DNS goes down, you also
have a LOT of problems..

> 
> 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.
AFAIK yes

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

> 
> 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.
A possiblility - but not recommended, I guess

> 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.
There not much diffrence to a).

I think the best solution is to ensure that the WINS-Server does not go down
- it could maybe run on the same machine as the DNS.

WINS stores some information about the clients, that DNS can´t

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