[Samba] Solution for: "Samba server does not show up in Windows Network Places"

[Peter Serbe]

Bo Kersey schrieb am 05.11.2014 15:40:

> So from my research yesterday, I find that:
> samba4/nbt has replication but not browsing capability
> nmbd has browsing capability but not replication.

The baseline is simple: the samba4 daemon does not include the 
network browsing code - IIRC it is the server side code that 
is missing. And there is little to no hope, that this will 
change within due time. Thus You won't be able to see the 
AD DC in the network neighborhood. 

This is the bad news. 

The good news is this one: If You set up a file server 
(a.k.a. member server), then You run the smbd/nmbd/winbind(d) 
deamons. And nmbd makes the file server to show up in the 
network neighborhood. At least if the correct options within 
smb.conf are activated. Typically You need the network 
neighborhood when opening (or saving) files from a word 
processing program and the like. Thus everything is pretty 
fine as it is right now. 

> <quote from a referenced thread>
> ... it would be bad to rely on a single 'nmbd' as wins 
> server in the whole domain. 

nmbd isn't nearly as critical as all the stuff, that runs 
on the AD DC. If the member server goes down, one of the 
clients should start taking over the network browsing list. 
You will feel some urgency to get the file server back 
online anyway... 

Well, for the time being, we would wish, that these nasty 
bugs around the demoting of a DC and, maybe sysvol replication, 
get fixed first. Besides, as running only a 'DIY-home' AD 
domain, I wonder, what is presently the state of GPOs. 
Maybe I haven't noticed, but there seems to be only very 
little information on that (e.g. in the wiki, or in Steve's
Costa Blanca blog). 

Best regards
Peter