Browsing Problems

[Wolf Paul]

Stephen L. Arnold <arnold.steve at ensco.com> writes,

> When the world was young, Wolf Paul carved some runes like this: 
> 
> > However, browsing the server does not seem to work. 
> > 
> > We have a network with mostly NT 4.0 clients, plus some Win95. 
> > 
> > Network Neighborhood on an NT client shows the server; double-clicking it 
> > produces the error message "RPC Error". 
> 
> Are you sure you want WINS support = yes? Isn't one of your NT 
> boxes providing the WINS service? What about the results of the 
> test steps in diagnosis.txt? Browsing is a function of nmbd (not 
> smbd)... I've never seen the "RPC error" (but we only have one NT4 
> workstation machine on the LAN). More Info? 

No, we don't have another WINS server in our network; but no, I am not
sure that I want SAMBA to provide that functionality either. Our network
seems to work fine without it.

The reason I turned it in is just in case my browsing problem is a name
resolution problem and this might just help  ... but I am nowhere near sure.

In fact my network administrators and the NT platform admins would prefer
that my SAMBA server only talk when directly spoken to, and does not 
respond to broadcasts since they are afraid that this might confuse the
genuine NT servers/clients.

More info:

The exact error message was not "RPC error" but as I said in a later 
message,

	"\\Atunfs is not accessible. The remote procedure call failed." 

Variously, as I specify different options for "guest account" or 
"local master", "os level", etc, the error message changes; sometimes
prompting me for a password and then (regardless of the password given)
complaining about a wrong password for the IPC$ service. (This
seems the standard error when trying to browse from a Win98 machine).

I just went through the tests in DIAGNOSIS.txt, and here are the results:

   Test  1:  testparm does not report any errors.

   Test  2:  ping works both ways.

   Test  3:  smbclient -L atunfs prompts for a password, and
            after pressing ENTER (= empty password) provides the list
            of shares.

   Test  4:  nmblookup -B atunfs __SAMBA__ works.

   Test  5:  nmblookup -B clientpc '*' works.

   Test  6:  nmblookup -d 2 '*' works, producing reams of IP addresses

   Test  7:  connecting to shares with smbclient using explicit paths works

   Test  8:  net view \\atunfs does NOT work, produces the error msg,
            "System error 1726 has occurred". 
            "net helpmsg 1726" produces, "The remote procedure call failed".

   Test  9:  connecting to shares with "net use" using explicit paths works.

   Test 10:  Browsing from File Mangaer& My Computer Map Network Drive
             or from Network Neighborhood does not work but says either
             "\\Atunfs is not accessible. The remote procedure call failed."
             (Network Neighborhood) or "The remote procedure call failed."
             (My Compter & File Manager Map Network Drive).

The above results for Tests 8 and 10 applies to NT 4.0; from a Win98 client
on the same network both Tests 8 and 10 succeed; similarly from a Win95 client.


All of this is independent of whether SECURITY is set to SERVER or to 
DOMAIN, and whether WINS is enabled or disabled on the Samba server.
For the sake of completeness here is my GLOBAL section again:

        workgroup = ALCATEL
        netbios name = ATUNFS
        server string = ATUNFS Samba Server
        interfaces = 146.112.129.100/19
        security = DOMAIN
        encrypt passwords = Yes
        password server = attdcp attnt1 attnt2 attnt3
        username map = /usr/local/samba/lib/smbusers
        password level = 9
        username level = 9
        log level = 3
        log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
        max log size = 50
        name resolve order = host bcast
        socket options = TCP_NODELAY
        printcap name = /etc/printcap
        lm announce = True
        local master = No
        printing = bsd
        case sensitive = Yes
        guest account = pcguest

   
       

I have no smbpasswd file (since I use security=DOMAIN); I have a 
usermap file which maps NT users to UNIX users (this works when 
connecting a share using the explicit path \\atunfs\sharename);
for all but a handfull of system accounts my UNIX passwd info comes via
NIS; the guest user "pcguest" is one of the local users in /etc/passwd,
with a '*' in the password field. (This is a change from yesterday, to
make things clearer I changed the guest account from nobody to pcguest.)