[Samba] Some Netbios Name Lookups Exhibit Long Delay

[Brock Nanson]

Maybe someone has been through this already and can provide a 
solution... I don't see anything in my Google searches or in the 
O'Reilly troubleshooting section.

Running 2.2.8a with LDAP on Redhat 9, up to date with all the RHN patches.
Samba coordinates browse lists with another Samba box on a remote 
network (via a VPN).
All workstations on both subnets use my local Samba box for WINS, as 
mandated by dhcpd on each subnet.
I have the network neighbourhood browsing thing aced across the subnets.
Doing WINS lookups on the Samba box locally with the nmblookup command 
gives instant response.
Windows workstations have mapped drives to the Samba box.  They open 
instantly.

If I try to browse the shares of any machine on the network via network 
neighbourhood, I see a 10-15 second delay before I get a result.  I get 
the same delay if I try to ping any machine on the network by name, 
using the MS-DOS window.  If I issue a 'net view \\machinename' command, 
I get the results instantly.  It's just the network neighbourhood 
browsing and pinging by machine name functions that exhibit this delay! 
  Winpopup seems OK.  It looks to me like the workstations revert to a 
broadcast method of finding the requested machine, but only for these 
commands.  But I really don't know what the issue is!

The network is mixed Win2K and Win98/ME boxes.  All seem to have the 
same problem.

I had been running an older Mandrake box with a newish version of Samba 
(several versions over the years) in place of this present server.  I 
did NOT see this problem then.  I copied my settings from the old server 
to the new one (smb.conf) and soon noted the problem.  This is what 
makes me think it's a configuration issue, but from what I can see, 
everything is correct.  Firewalling is not active.

wins.dat is being kept up to date.  So is browse.dat.

Any ideas?  At this point, I'd settle for suggestions of where to look, 
but an actual solution would be gold!

The 'global' portion of my smb.conf follows:


#======================= Global Settings ===============================
[global]

    workgroup = TRUEKAM
    server string = Vader
    netbios name = VADER

    hosts allow = 192.168.0. 192.168.1. 192.168.100. 192.168.200. 127.

    printcap name = /etc/printcap
    load printers = yes

    log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m

    max log size = 50

    security = user

   encrypt passwords = yes

   # LDAP settings for user lookup and auth.
   ldap admin dn = "cn=SAMBA,o=true.ca,dc=true,dc=ca"
   ldap server = localhost
   ldap ssl = off
   ldap port = 389
   ldap suffix = "ou=People,ou=Accounts,o=true.ca,dc=true,dc=ca"
   ldap filter = "(&(uid=%u)(objectclass=sambaAccount))"

   passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
   passwd chat = *New*password* %n\n *new*password* %n\n *changed*

    # network performance
    socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

    os level = 99
    preferred master = yes
    domain master = yes
    local master = yes
    name resolve order = wins host bcast
    domain master = yes

    remote browse sync = 192.168.100.253
    remote announce = 192.168.0.255

    wins support = yes
    wins proxy = yes
    dns proxy = no

#============================ Share Definitions ========================
<snip>

Thanks!

Brock Nanson