ghost machines, revisited

[James W. Beauchamp]

Excellent point - this should point to the master browser and hopefully it
will be something other than SAMBA.  You might check and see if your
smb.conf settings are set so it will always win the browse election - one in
particular is os level = 64 - I think this will ensure that SAMBA always
wins the broswer election.  I don't know how this works across the subnets
though.

James

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rashkae" <rashkae at wealthmap.ca>
To: "Rashkae" <rashkae at wealthmap.ca>
Cc: "James W. Beauchamp" <jbeauchamp at gesinc.com>; "Keith Warno"
<keith.warno at valaran.com>; <samba at lists.samba.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: ghost machines, revisited


> Further along this same line of thought, you can look for what is the
> current master browser by running command: nmblookup -M -
> That will report the IP address of the current master browser. You can
> further identify the machine (if required) by nmblookup -A ipaddress
>
> I do hope that helps.
>
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Rashkae wrote:
>
> 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?
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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