[Samba] Why are Samba DCs not browsable?

[Rowland Penny]

On 04/11/15 05:08, Gary Dale wrote:
> On 29/10/15 05:41 AM, Rowland Penny wrote:
>> On 29/10/15 09:19, Viktor Trojanovic wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> In a book I'm reading on Samba4, the author explains that network 
>>> browsing doesn't work for Samba AD DCs "because there is no nmbd 
>>> process".
>>>
>>> It's true enough that I can't browse my DC, however, there is an 
>>> active nmbd process on my Samba server. So I wonder if the 
>>> explanation of the author is (still) correct. I couldn't find any 
>>> supporting or contradicting information on the web.
>>>
>>> Viktor
>>
>> The book is partially correct, nmbd shouldn't be run on a DC, but 
>> there is a netbios server built into the samba binary but it doesn't 
>> contain the browsing code. If you are running a DC and there is a 
>> separate 'nmbd' running, then you really should stop it and stop it 
>> starting at boot.
>>
>> Rowland
>>
>>
> Is there any work being done to fix this problem? I just redid a Samba 
> 4 install and discovered that the DC was not browsable. Since this is 
> for a small office, they only have the one server doing both DC and 
> file & print services. Browsing is somewhat important.
>

No it's not, you can still connect to the DC by address, it just doesn't 
show up network neighborhood. It might be a good time to get used to 
doing it this way, windows itself seems to be moving away from network 
browsing.

Of course, if you cannot live without browsing, you could always come up 
with the code to use the separate nmbd deamon instead of the nbt code 
built into the samba deamon.

Rowland