cannot see systems in network.

[Eric Windisch]

Peter Samuelson wrote:

> [Eric Windisch <ewindisc at fit.edu>]
> > I am at Uni and cannot see the majority of the users on the network..
> > someone told me this may be because of NetBeui.
>
> NetBEUI is a very simple transport-level protocol, almost NetBIOS over
> raw ethernet.  It's good for plug-n-play instand Windows networking
> where the admin doesn't have to set up TCP/IP infrastructure including
> annoying things like routing.  (Because NetBEUI has *no* routing.)
> It's also rather network-unfriendly in that it generates a lot of
> mandatory broadcast traffic unlike using TCP/IP where you at least have
> the option of using WINS.
>
> Samba has no support for NetBEUI (yet -- there were rumors that Jeremy
> Allison received a patch from someone to add such support), so if the
> Windows clients converse using that, Samba is left out.  This is a more
> general problem with having multiple protocols on your network -- not
> everyone will see the whole conversation and the browse lists ("seeing"
> users on the network, as you put it) will be unpredictable.
>
> On your Windows clients (if you have any control over them) it is
> almost always a good idea to uninstall NetBEUI and use only TCP/IP for
> windows networking.  This used to come at a cost because not everyone
> wanted the complexity of setting up TCP/IP, but these days almost
> everyone has already done so because they want the use of a web
> browser, so it's usually a sunk cost.
>
> As for the other popular Windows networking transport, IPX/SPX, you can
> leave it on the machine if it's being used for other things (networked
> Diablo, for instance), but disable the bindings between IPX/SPX and the
> "workstation" and "server" services.
>
> Peter

Thank you for this response..

This is basicly what I had already known, except that I was hoping that I
would findout how to make samba work with NetBeui.  It is an unfortunate
thing that I cannot change the settings on the Wintel boxen because they
are just the majority of students at this University.  The administrators
tried to help by leaving out the installation of NetBeui in their
networking howto, but then everyone just realized that they didn't see
anyone because they needed NetBeui installed :(

I know that NetBeui is disabled in the new buildings here.  Perhaps they
will do the same in the dorms., when they replace these ancient hubs.

--
Eric Windisch