[Samba] Why are Samba DCs not browsable?

[Steve Ankeny]

On 11/04/2015 03:48 AM, Rowland Penny wrote:
> 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
>

Actually, Microsoft separates these functions as well -- Active 
Directory, File Server, Remote Desktop, etc.  As Victor said, you can 
"still" use Samba in Classic mode and do all the things you want, but AD 
is different.

Using Samba as a replacement for Microsoft Active Directory (which often 
requires a separate server) is great.  You can "fire it up" as a virtual 
machine, and it will perform all the Active Directory functions you want.

In my opinion, it's far better to run these on separate instances than 
trying to combine them into one server.