[Samba] The single WINS problem: question

John H Terpstra jht at samba.org
Tue Dec 13 23:17:04 GMT 2005


On Monday 12 December 2005 02:02, werner maes wrote:
> 	hello
>
> I've been reading the thread
> (http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=113286376900001&r=1&w=2) and I have
> the same limitation with WINS in a PDC/BDC.
>
> That's why I have the following (experimental) setup:
>
> PDC ==> wins support = yes, passdb backend: master ldap
> BDC ==> wins support = yes, passdb backend: slave ldap
>
> I configured some of my XP clients to use both WINS servers and it
> seems to work.

Well, you CAN do this, but then it is necessary to use the "remote browse 
sync" and "remote announce" parameters on both systems to gain cross-subnet 
browsing and name resolution capability. You will likely find that Windows 
hosts will register with only one WINS server - that is one of the key 
reasons for the advice that is in the man page and in the HOWTO book.

>
> but in the manual of smb.conf I read:
>
> wins support (G)
>                Note that you should NEVER set this to yes  on
>                more than one machine in your network.
>
>
> What could happen if you use more than one WINS server on your network?

You COULD (likely will) have broken NetBIOS name resolution, with the result 
that windows clients can panic and blue-screen.

- John T.


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