[Samba] Unwanted Workgroup Names on WINS

[Matthew Easton]

On Monday 18 July 2005 06:41, Umut Arus wrote:
> Hello,
>
> There are many workgroup names on Microsoft Windows Network. Sometimes,
> users could wrong type the workgroups name on self computers, and
> creating new record on WINS server. I don't want showing the unwanted
> names to end users. Only two workgroups must be showed. Is it possible
> that I could clean unnecessary names?
>
> regards.

I would guess you have unwanted names due to broadcasts by workstations who 
are not members of the workgroup.  If you can join them to the workgroup  or 
disable their ability to share (In Network Control Panel, disable file and 
printer sharing but leave Client for Microsoft Networks enabled) you will 
reduce the noise.

If your server is acting as a wins server, the wins.dat file lives in 
/usr/local/samba/var/locks or /var/run/ or perhaps /var/cache/samba.  I 
recall that you can delete it entirely and it will be rebuilt. Or you can 
edit it manually, and even add static entries.
http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba3-HOWTO/NetworkBrowsing.html#id2564208

Possibly your workstations don't know about the wins server.  Your DHCP server 
may be able to configure the setting on the clients (although not the case 
with most broadband NAT routers, I'm sorry to say.) Or you can manually set 
the WINS server in TCP/IP advanced settings.

Consider using a share mounting script 
If you have a domain setup, members of the domain will automatically mount the 
shares by means of a netologon script.

But in a workgroup setting, you can avoid user error by writing a similar 
script that you save to the user's desktop as something like 
"MountServer.cmd" .  Tell them to doubleclick it and away they go

#######################################
########    MountServer.cmd    ############

net use P: \\myserver\someshare /USER:psmith
net use Q: \\myserver\anothershare 

# a command line window will open up and request the password.
# see Microsoft Help for the "net" command to see more.