[Samba] one opinion about searching samba docs for answers

[William Burns]

John:

I agreee about the searchability of the samba list.
Using the "site" parameter of google helps by keeping your search 
results limited (mostly) to the samba list.
http://www.google.com/search?q=domain_master_node_status_fail+site%3Asamba.org&hl=en&lr=
domain_master_node_status_fail site:samba.org

I've often wondered why there isn't a "next by thread" link on the 
archived messages.
You can always take the extra click to get to the thread view, but often 
there's no reply, and there's a tedious succession of wasted clicks.

This probably isn't an immediate help, but the code can be browsed online:
http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/branches/SAMBA_3_1_RELEASE/source/nmbd/nmbd_browsesync.c?rev=2563&content-type=text%2Fplain

Someone probably thought that error message was self explanatory.
It does mention the term "Master Browser", which might cause a person to 
look here:

How Browsing Functions
http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/NetworkBrowsing.html#id2561439

It also contains the term/phrase: "node status request", which might 
prompt an aggressive google-jockey to try this search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=node-status-request

Which (among other things) returns this link:
http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Net/Net-NBName-0.25.readme

Which yields this info:
 > The node status request can be used to query the NetBIOS name table 
of a remote host

All this together is *probably* enough to put a sys-admin on the right 
track.

It's not always possible to direct a user to a single "relevant area of 
configuration".
A lot depends on the circumstances of the application, and the intent of 
the user.
Link-rot is another problem. If the documentation gets a significant 
overhaul, then links (from error messages) into that documentation might 
break over time.

If the code that generates the error messages in SAMBA is consistent 
enough, it might be possible to generate a list of all the error messages.
 From there, it might be helpful to link all the buzzwords to glossary 
entries.

If we assume that the list can be generated easily enough, how many 
volunteers do you think might be available to identify terms, link to 
definitions, solutions, and/or documentation?

-Bill

From:
http://websvn.samba.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/branches/SAMBA_3_1_RELEASE/source/nmbd/nmbd_browsesync.c?rev=2563&content-type=text%2Fplain

> /****************************************************************************
>   Function called when a node status query to a domain master browser 
> IP fails.
> ****************************************************************************/
>
> static void domain_master_node_status_fail(struct subnet_record *subrec,
>                        struct response_record *rrec)
> {
>     struct userdata_struct *userdata = rrec->userdata;
>
>     if( DEBUGLVL( 0 ) ) {
>         dbgtext( "domain_master_node_status_fail:\n" );
>         dbgtext( "Doing a node status request to the domain master 
> browser\n" );
>         dbgtext( "for workgroup %s ", userdata ? userdata->data : 
> "NULL" );
>         dbgtext( "at IP %s failed.\n", inet_ntoa(rrec->packet->ip) );
>         dbgtext( "Cannot sync browser lists.\n" );
>     }
> }



John Stile wrote:

>It sure is hard to find info in the documentation/mailing list for a
>specific error.  If an error log message was created by smbd, nmbd, or
>winbind, shouldn't the documentation contain a description, cause, and
>possible solution?
>
>Specific case in point:
>          [2005/08/05 11:31:22, 0] nmbd/nmbd_browsesync.c:domain_master_node_status_fail(250)
>          domain_master_node_status_fail:
>          Doing a node status request to the domain master browser
>          for workgroup MS at IP 192.168.40.20 failed.
>          Cannot sync browser lists.
>
>Searching the docs returned nothing for search strings:
>   nmbd_browsesync
>   domain_master_node_status_fail
>   Cannot sync browser lists
>
>The documents cover just about everything, except how to go from a log
>message to the relevant areas of configuration.  On the other hand, the
>documentation does a very good job of going from theory to high level
>samba planning (with some configuration details).  Shouldn't the
>documentation contain common error names, so that a search will direct
>the reader to the proper place?
>
>It might be nice if there was a good search-able mailing list archive at
>samba.org, but the archive doesn't search well.  Maybe because too many
>people abused the search tool because answers are not in the docs.
>
>So I end up using an Internet Search Engine only to find many hits with
>the same questions and no concise answers.  
>
>I might be the only own who feels this way, but I would love to know how
>to fix it.  Every time I go through this, I have these thoughts.
>
>  
>