[Samba] very very weird problem, Samba completely broken

[Edmundo Valle Neto]

Eric Evans escreveu:
> This is very strange and frustrating.  Our users complained that they 
> weren't able to get ANY Samba access, not even being able to map a 
> network drive

What that means? Not beeing able to find the server and browse the 
network? Beeing able to find it and receiving access denied?

> (forgetting for now about that domain logon thing for a while).  So I 
> went into the /etc/samba/smb.conf and took out all of the statements 
> that had anything to do with domain controlling and net logons, 
> basically restoring the smb.conf to the state it was in before I 
> started messing around with all that domain controller stuff.  To my 
> chagrin, now NOTHING works on Samba, even with my original smb.conf!  
> The only thing I'm doing differently now that I wasn't doing last week 
> is I'm now running Samba 3 instead of Samba 2.  Should I uninstall 
> Samba 3 and put version 2 back on?  This is too weird.  Here's the 
> error message I'm getting in my samba log file whenever I try to map a 
> network drive on the Windows client:
>
> [2006/07/07 17:24:18, 0] 
> nmbd/nmbd_incomingrequests.c:process_name_refresh_request(183)
>   process_name_refresh_request: unicast name registration request 
> received for name WORKGROUP<00> from IP 128.253.175.150 on subnet 
> UNICAST_SUBNET.
> [2006/07/07 17:24:18, 0] 
> nmbd/nmbd_incomingrequests.c:process_name_refresh_request(184)
>   Error - should be sent to WINS server
>

Messing with name resolution in a running network can take some minutes 
to stabilize, to machines make elections, to server annouce theirselves 
to the network, to wrong entries expire in caches, etc. Sometimes you 
must reload the network configuration on the clients to get the new 
config, or change it manually.

In respect of the above error message, that I know (someone corrects me 
if Im wrong) unicast packets with name registrations are only accepted 
by WINS servers, to accept it without beeing a WINS server the packet 
must be a broadcast packet. Probably samba is complaining about that (a 
misconfiguration on how the clients are trying to register themselves). 
So the name resolution in your network will probably fail completely.

>> It seems that your Client VENUS tries to register itself to the WINS 
>> server it is configured to. Check what WINS server is configured 
>> using "ipconfig /all" in   a DOS prompt.
>>
>> If your client's WINS server is configured to be a.b.c.d and your 
>> domain PDC IP is a.b.c.d but the "wins server" parameter of smb.conf 
>> is set to "no" then it would seem logical that the error is "Should 
>> be sent to the WINS".
>>
>> Please post your "ipconfig /all" output and your smb.conf file.
>
> Here's the output from the ipconfig /all:
>
> Windows IP Configuration
>
>         Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : cornell-emngrvm
>         Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
>         Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
>         IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
>         WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
>         DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : phonetics.cornell.edu
>
> Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
>
>         Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : phonetics.cornell.edu
>         Description . . . . . . . . . . . : 3Com 3C920 Integrated Fast 
> Ethernet
> Controller (3C905C-TX Compatible)
>         Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-06-5B-95-8C-15
>         Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
>         Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
>         IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 128.253.175.146
>         Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.128
>         Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 128.253.175.129
>         DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 132.236.56.249
>         DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 132.236.56.250
>                                             128.253.180.2
>         Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Friday, July 07, 2006 
> 5:14:05 PM
>         Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Friday, July 07, 2006 
> 6:14:05 PM
>
> Here's the /etc/samba/smb.conf:
>
> [global]
>         socket address = 128.253.175.155
>         socket options = TCP_NODELAY
>         invalid users = bin daemon adm sync shutdown halt mail news uucp
>         max log size = 100
>
>         print command = /bin/lp -d%p %s; sleep 5; rm -f %s
>         printer = 128_1
>         printing = SYSV
>
>         log file = /var/log/samba.log
>         log level = 2
>         max log size = 50
>         debug timestamp = yes
>
> [homes]
>         browseable = no
>         read only = no
>         writeable = yes
>         guest ok = no
>
> I'm completely mystified as to why I keep getting these "Error - 
> should be sent to WINS server" messages.  If anyone has any 
> suggestions I'd love to hear them.  At this point it looks to me that 
> Samba has somehow become broken beyond repair.
>
> Eric
>

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown?

I never saw that one, I dont have sure if it can have that value and 
work properly, this value says what is the order and inclusion (with its 
own nomenclature) of netbios name resolution (broadcast or WINS (a 
unicast packet, remember?)), searching the MS KBs I found this: 
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310570

Try unsing "nbtstat -a yourserver" on the command line of the windows 
machine to see if it can list the table of names of the server (and see 
if netbios and name resolution is working).

Probably your client (or a lot of them) is making some confusion and 
isnt registering itself properly to the network.



Regards.

Edmundo Valle Neto