[Samba] Tracking WINS Problems

[Phil Gregory]

I'm having some problems with (I think) WINS here and am hoping for some
pointers to tools that will help me track down what's going on.

Really, I'd like to be able to get a big dump of all of the names
registered on a WINS server.  (The WINS server in question is a NT box to
which I don't have direct access.  Ideally, I'd like to be able to see a
nmblookup-style dump showing every name the server knows about.)

The problems I'm dealing with:

For one thing, computers don't seem to be showing up in WINS when I think
they ought to be.  We have a bunch of Win95 and 98 desktops that use the
network's WINS server, but many of them seem only sporadically listed.
This occasionally happens with the fileserver, which is running Samba
2.2.3a.  For this problem, I suspect I'm going to have to just listen to
the network and see what's going on.

(There seems to be some indication that browse lists aren't being shared
among subnets.  Querying the domain master browser (which is not the WINS
server) with nmblookup does not yield results for computers in the domain
but on other subnets.)

The other problem is that random workgroups keep showing up in our browse
lists.  A coworker of mine thinks that WINS is to blame for this.  I'm not
sure, but this is why I'd like to just dump all of the names on the WINS
server--if they're coming through WINS, I could see who's registering the
bogus workgroups.  (The workgroups are usually one character long,
occasionally two, and are usually non alphanumeric characters.)

For further reference, here's a brief summary of our network (in case
anyone wants to give me some helpful pointers:

The main network has two IP subnets on it.  On this network, there are two
SMB workgroups (actually NT domains, as there's a PDC for each).  The
members of the DEERECO workgroup are all in the 192.168.101.0 subnet,
while the HS workgroup computers are all 192.168.100.0.  The PDCs for each
domain are LMBs and DMBs on their respective subnets.  One Samba-running
(and Linux-running) host in the HS workgroup is using IP aliasing and has
IP addresses in each subnet.  It is the LMB for the HS group on the
192.168.101.0 subnet.  There are two other subnets on different network
segments (i.e. with routers between them and the main network) with hosts
in the DEERECO domain.  Those are almost never visible in the main
network's browse lists, even though they have been pointed at the WINS
server.  (As have all computers on the network.)  Finally, there are about
three other segments/subnets with their own computers.  They each have
their own workgroups (something like GROUP01, GROUP02, etc.), though they
are also pointed at the WINS server.  (It is from these last set of
somputers that my coworker thinks the bogus workgroups are coming.)

Any help or pointers will be appreciated.