nmbd & netbios name -> many addreses

Christopher R. Hertel crh at nts.umn.edu
Thu Mar 18 22:48:22 GMT 1999


> > Also, there's the type
> > byte.  How do you include that with a DNS name?
> 
> don't.  if you _have_ to, use a valid char (e.g # if that's valid!) as a
> separator and put the name type after it.

Luke, we're talking about mapping DNS name to NetBIOS names.  The idea 
suggested was that nmbd should reject NetBIOS names that do not conform 
to DNS syntax.  The only non-alphanumeric character allowed in a DNS name 
is the dash.

> don't register those.  only register unique names; only register server
> names; only register PDC Domain names; only register multiple BDC Domain
> names is an exceptional consideration.

If you restrict your NBNS server that way, is it an NBNS server?  If you 
don't register group names, will the machines be able to find the 
services that they are looking to find?  I don't think that this is a 
functional solution.

Of course, my stance (having tried too hard to make it work) is that
NetBIOS names simply *do not* map to DNS names and vice-versa.  *Unless*
you are using the Level 1 encoding *and* scope as described in the RFCs.

Of course, no one does that.

If a machine's DNS name happens to be the same string as one of the
NetBIOS names (sans type byte) that it has registered, that's nice. 
Trying to build a formal mapping between the two is neither practical nor
scalable. 

Chris -)-----

-- 
Christopher R. Hertel -)-----                   University of Minnesota
crh at nts.umn.edu              Networking and Telecommunications Services


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