ghost machines, revisited

[Rashkae]

I do know that Windows clients will still browse, even if configured for
WINS lookup, and obviously, SAMBA browser is is picking up the ghost
machines, since they are appearing in browse.dat.

I don't really understand how Master Browser concept works, but guessing,
I would say that a Master Browser is keeping these records alive, and
replication to clients that browse. Since emptying the entries from the
browse.dat did not stop them from re-appearing, I'm guessing Samba, (or,
at least that particular Samba) is not the master browser.....

I'm also not familiar with this being a problem of Windows. But then, the
last version of Windows I ever installed on any network was NT4 sp 4, so I
do not know how other Service packs and or newer clients like ME / 2000 /
XP might work.

Maybe you could try to force SAMBA to be your master browser. There should
be settings to make the OS Level ludicrously high and force elections,
(Preferred Master and all that.)  I'm not sure what negative consequences
can come of this. I believe there might be a problem with network traffic
/ unresponsive PDC if a PDC and Samba are constantly forcing elections for
master browser.

Even so, should this work and not cause further problems, it does not
identify what machine on the network is causing the ghosts to appear. If
I'm right and this all works (assuming your willing to subjetc a
productive environment to experiments suggested by someone who doesn't
know what he's talking about, very unwise), as soon as Samba is shut down
and otherwise unavailable, the old master browser will re-assert itself
and possibly re-polute browse lists with the defunct entries.



On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, James W. Beauchamp wrote:

You are correct - I didn't not think of that.  clients are only looking
where they are told to look and that doesn't explain why Samba keeps putting
the 'ghost' machines in the browse.dat file.

James

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rashkae" <rashkae at wealthmap.ca>
To: "Keith Warno" <keith.warno at valaran.com>
Cc: "James W. Beauchamp" <jbeauchamp at gesinc.com>; <samba at lists.samba.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: ghost machines, revisited


> Umm, maybe someone could educamate me here....
>
> Why would Clients be polling a stray WINS server unless they were
> explicitly instructed (configured) to do so?
>
> As a related question, have you had a look at winipcfg on the clients to
> check and see if the DHCP server might be assigning some unwanted values
> to WINS?
>
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Keith Warno wrote:
>
>
>
> James W. Beauchamp wrote:
>
> > Sounds to me like you've go another WINS server running (unauthorized of
> > course) somewhere.  Maybe some WIndoze box somewhere?  NT server or 2000
web
> > server maybe.
> >
>
>
> Yes this is certainly a theory.  Although I though win2k clients (not
> server) were capable of doing this??
>
> I *do* have one win2k server running but it is completely off in it's
> own land (all by his lonesome in his own subnet); I do not administer
> the machine though as it is used for our voice network (not my cup o'
> java).  AFAIK that machine is not even in the same workgroup.
>
> Is there some easy means by which to tell if there is a stray WINS
> server out there?
>
>
>
>