Preloading WINS registrations

[JON GERDES]

I have a couple of Samba boxes, one of which is dedicated to WINS.  The other I dole out anti-virus stuff to 3,500 odd PCs from.  

This second one will disappear from the WINS server from time to time which is a bit of a pain.  I use nmblookup -R -U <wins_ip> <2nd_box_ip> to test for it.  All clients are configured as "P" nodes so WINS is a bit essential.  To bring it back I do a smb stp smb start and off it goes.  Now this is fine as far as it goes but any PCs updating at that time can get a little upset.  There are 500 odd smbd running at any one time.

For example these are the entries when it is registered:
"VOYAGER#00" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R
"VOYAGER#03" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R
"VOYAGER#20" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R

I understand the #0x corresponds to the entry type but what is the 9 digit number to the right of that ?

Can I get away with creating my own entries in the wins.dat file ?

Will nmbd use a host file or lmhosts in response to queries or does it just use the wins.dat which it maintains ?

Bottom line - How can I ensure my WINS server will always respond to certain queries ?

Another bottom line - Why can't my Samba daemons be as stable as my NT boxen (har har har) ? OK why does Samba not re-register occasionally (seems to be about a week, which is the final time out on an entry I believe)

Sorry, lots of questions, anyone able to help ?

Cheers

Jon Gerdes
Network Services
Westland Helicopters Ltd