Disappearing Samba servers

[Bruce Cook]

Karl_Royer at sandwich.pfizer.com writes:
 > 
 > > Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 00:36:18 -0800
 > > From: "Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer at mhsc.com>
 > > To: "samba at arvidsjaur.anu.edu.au" <samba at samba.anu.edu.au> Subject:
 > > Disappearing Samba servers
 > > Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19980111003618.00927c80 at pop.mhsc.com>
 > >
 > > Hello all,
 > >
 > > I recently ran across a problem which I'd seen mentioned earlier. When
 > > setup with v1.9.17p4, I set both local master and domain master. Only one 
 > > achine was supporting WINS. Within 6 hours, both other servers 
 > > disappeared from the browse lists. Tha smbd seemed healthy, as well as 
 > > nmbd, because both servers responded to a find and, once found, showed 
 > > their shares in the find window. On the theory that they weren't 
 > > reporting their status to the WINS server, I enabled 'wins proxy' support 
 > > in both of them. This is all that I did and they haven't disappeared 
 > > since. My WinNTws40SP3 machines only have the WINS machine, as the WINS 
 > > server explicitly stated in the configuration dialogs.
 > >
 > > I might suggest that in future versions of Samba, when 'wins server' is 
 > > set then 'wins proxy' be automaticaly set by default. This implies that 
 > > no seperate setting is needed for 'wins proxy'.
 > >
 > > This idea maybe all wet, if so, please inform.
 > 
 > You are not alone, many other people have reported this happening. I feel 
 > setting "wins proxy" may not be a correct solution, in 1.9.17p5 of do not
 > declare the netbios name not netmask options it doesnt happen ??
 > 
 > I as yet have been unable to work out why this happens, except that it 
 > fails to announce itself after a few hours (milage varies !).
 > 
 > 
 > Please could you try 1.9.17p5 and removing the netbios name from your 
 > s,mb.conf file.

I've found when this happens, it's du to the fact that one of the machines
is attempting to be a browse master (local) without having "local master = yes".

This would probably be the case above if the other machines where in
different workgroups (You need a browse master for each workgroup, and
a domain master for each network).