[Samba] Re: Lost All Win95 connections to Samba

[Gary Dale]

Douglas D Germann Sr wrote:
> <<Gary Dale <garydale <at> torfree.net> writes:
>   
>> I'm wondering at this point about the difference in the handling of 
>> DNS/WINS between Win95 and WinXP. Normally, XP is the fussier of the 
>> two, but ...
>>
>> With a separate switch and router, and a router normally providing DNS 
>> services, perhaps you are having a problem in that area. You can ping 
>> google, presumably from the name and not the ip address, so your DNS is 
>> likely working.
>>
>> It appears your switch is working. You can ping between stations OK.
>>
>> You may need WINS services running to get Win95 to connect to Samba 
>> properly. That's what I'd concentrate on.
>>     
>
>
> Gary--
>
> Thanks, especially for your reasoning through this for me.
>
> I am wondering if my local computer hardware dealer and repair folks
> might be able to test the switch and router to see if there are problems.
>
> Yes, I did ping google from the name.
>
> OK, I'll go look for a howto on WINS and see what that takes. Perhaps it is
> just a Synaptic install.
>
> In the meantime, does it make sense that it needs WINS if it just stopped
> working one night? Now granted it has only been on this server for about 2-3 
> weeks. 
>
> Before that I had another server, an older red hat 9.0 box. Maybe I could try
> getting that box back up and running and see if Win95 can still connect to it.
>
> Thanks, Gary!
>
> :- Doug.
>
>   

WINS is the Windows Internet Name Service - it is similar to DNS but 
different enough to cause problems. Samba handles WINS differently, so 
searching for WINS won't work. And I don't have anything old enough to 
test from here. However, you could look at winbind or nsswitch 
configuration. Possibly it's just a matter of starting winbind...