[Samba] browsing across subnets/vpn

[David Adam]

On Wed, 14 Apr 2010, David Cake wrote:

> 	I am setting up a client with vpn to access a samba share. The samba
> server (which is both file and WINS server) is also the vpn machine, so
> nothing too complicated as far as routing goes, and the vpn stuff (openvpn
> stuff) all seems to work fine, client can manually log into shares by
> specifying the name and vpn interface address of the share.
> 	I am using layer three bridging (IP over a tun interface), not layer
> two (ethernet over a tap interface)
> 	But what I would need to do to allow clients to browse shares on this
> one machine.
> 	Is there a way to configure the Windows client (and samba if
> necessary) to allow browsing of shares, without switching everything over to
> ethernet bridging (which seems a lot to do do for  simple task).
> 	I assume this is, at heart, a fairly simple browsing across subnets
> question. Please forgive my cluelessness.

I think the instructions at 
http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/NetworkBrowsing.html#DMB
will solve your problem - I assume you are not using a domain? Anyway, set 
your VPN server up to be the domain master browser and you should be 
laughing.

If you are using a VPN configuration interface that lets you hand out 
options as well as addresses, you might consider running a WINS server as 
well.

David Adam
zanchey at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au