[Samba] LAN Browsing shows IP Addresses instead of Computer Names.

Joel Hammer Joel at HammersHome.com
Sun Jun 15 12:57:44 GMT 2003


I am no expert and am certainly rusty on this sort of question. Just some
ideas. I do not know if the suggestions below are really what you
need. However, how do you think that samba is supposed to do reverse
lookups to find the name corresponding to an ip number?

1. Have you walked through DIAGNOSIS.txt?

2. What is this router you have that keeps changing ip addresses? Very
inconvenient. It is not hard to set up a dhcp server on a linux box. The
nice part is that you can ensure that the  same ip number is given
every time to the same computer, using the identifying number on the network
card.

3. If you do #2, then you can use [lm]hosts files on both the linux and windows
boxes to associate names and ip addresses.

4. The easiest thing might be to install a wins server. This just involves
adding a few lines to smb.conf on one linux box. Here is what I have
in mine:

        name resolve order = lmhosts wins bcast host
        netbios name = JHAMMER6
        os level = 100
        preferred master = True
        domain master = True
        wins support = Yes    

This makes this machine the wins server. Point your other machines,
to this one. This requires a wins server = parameter in the linux boxes and
you can muck around with the menus in windows to point to the wins server.

5. Maybe you have a bad name resolve order parameter? The meaning of the
options above is:
 lmhosts = /etc/hosts file 
 wins    = wins server
 bcast   = broadcast
 host    = DNS lookup
Do you have the bcast option in your smb.conf file? 

6. If you want to spend many happy hours, you might consider setting up a
DNS server, provided you have set up a DHCP server to ensure the same ip's
are given each time to the same computers.

7. Can you tell your router to always give the same number to each of
your computers?

Joel




On Sat, Jun 14, 2003 at 11:35:42PM -0700, Mega Spaz wrote:
> I'm trying to figure out how I can have my lan browser display computer 
> names instead of IP Addresses.  I think the ip addresses are generated by my 
> router since if I add a new computer, the ip addresses will be different for 
> each computer.  anyway let me give you the specs first.  Running Samba 
> 2.2.8a-1 on Red Hat 7.3.  I have not set up WINS or DNS at all.  I have set 
> up lisarc to use nmblookup.  I'm assuming that my network is using 
> broadcasting to get computers in my LAN since i have not set up any computer 
> names in hosts or lmhosts.  The current set up works right now in that 
> computers come up and can be browsed independant of the ip addresses 
> assigned to the computers.  ie. if computer Tron is up on the network, and 
> then I boot up Sark, Sark will show up at the first next broadcast.  but the 
> computers show up in konqueror as ip addresses, not as Tron and Sark.  My 
> very old first setup attempt had me manually adding ip addresses and names 
> manually in the /etc/hosts file.  but that would mess up the lan browsing if 
> another new computer was added to the network.  So if Sark is 192.168.0.2 
> and Tron is 192.168.0.3 and let's say my brother brings his laptop and i put 
> his laptop on the network, the ip addresses on the network will change to 
> something like Sark = 192.168.0.3, Tron = 192.168.0.2 and my brother's 
> laptop maybe something like Bros_comp = 192.168.0.4.  but the /etc/hosts 
> file will have the old assignments which really messes up the browsing part. 
>   Anyway right now i think i have it set up almost right since i can browse 
> the network and the computers on the network will be found no matter the 
> time they are actually booted up, but ip addresses in the lan browsing isn't 
> very useful and I would like to see the computer names displayed in the lan 
> browsing in konqueror.  thank you for your patience, time, and any help you 
> can provide.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Vince =)
> 
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