[Samba] VPN and NetBIOS Name Service

[David Chait]

shaunp wrote:
> Hello, I'm running a Samba client on Mac OS X 10.3.9 and Samba works fine when
> the Mac is at home (e.g. file transfers, name resolution, etc.).  However, name
> resolution does not work when the Mac is at a remote location and logged into my
> home network via a PPTP VPN.  File transfers work fine over the VPN connection
> when I use IP addresses instead of NetBIOS names.
>
> While trying to debug the problem I ran WireShark to sniff packets on the Mac
> and found that Samba does not broadcast the NetBIOS Name Query across my ppp0
> interface.  Since ppp0 is dynamically created on the Mac when it connects to the
> VPN it doesn't appear that I can set ppp0 as an interface in smb.conf to solve
> the problem.  Is this correct and, if so, what do I need to do to tell Samba to
> broadcast NetBIOS Name Service traffic over dynamically created interfaces?
>
> Thanks,
> Shaun
>
>   
Why not just set Samba to run a WINS service and point your laptop to 
that? WINS eliminates the need for NetBIOS broadcasts.

-David