Multi-WINS behavior.
Peter Samuelson
peter at cadcamlab.org
Mon Jul 17 03:46:06 GMT 2000
[crh]
> I also discovered that I didn't have to jump through all of the
> foolish hoops just to get the C compiler licensed. Once I was able
> to repair the bad disk I copied the licenses and they worked.
Yes, flexlm seems to be rather sane as license managers go. By
contrast, although netls/iforls/lum/whatever-it's-called-this-week
works ok for node-locked licenses, their floating license server sucks
pus through a capillary tube. I once spent four hours on the phone
with IBM trying to get our license daemon back up and working.
Getting a bit off topic, though, aren't we? (:
> > Yes, I know, different machines might see different parts of the
> > namespace, but at the heart of it all there is still only the One
> > True, Flat Namespace.
>
> I see it as multiple, disjoint namespaces, but perhaps this is just a
> question of terminology. I'm calling the broadcast domain a
> namespace, and the set of all names in the WINS server database is a
> namespace. The namespace of a given node is the union of all
> namespaces in which it participates.
Yes, it's a matter of terminology. To me, a namespace represents "the
range of machines across which a name collision would cause problems".
I still maintain that this means any machine reachable through NetBIOS,
be it via WINS, broadcast or lmhosts.
Now, not everyone will necessarily see the whole namespace at a time.
If you have WINS to bridge multiple broadcast domains, and not everyone
uses it, some machines will only see part of the namespace. To me that
does *not* imply that what they see is a separate, smaller namespace.
Now my fundamental point: for any set of machines communicating through
NetBIOS, there is only one namespace (by my definition, above). *Any*
name collision risks confusion (at the least), because there is in
general no way to specify that you want only a machine in a particular
sub-namespace (from a particular WINS server, or in the local broadcast
domain, or whatever).
Yes, you can run an H- or M-node and prioritize which sub-namespace you
want to see first, but if either the WINS server or the target machine
goes down, you'll still get the wrong machine. This, to me, is a much
worse eventuality than getting a false negative lookup.
> > Maybe in another five years everyone will have migrated to Win2k
> > with DNS and we can all forget about this.
>
> Trade the old problems for the new.
(: The trade press loves Win2k but what would you expect. My
experience to date:
One guy here wanted us to load Win2k on his laptop, for DVD. Two days
later he brought it back, said to wipe it and put Win98 on -- it seems
he couldn't get any work done because Win2k kept crashing. So we did,
of course, but meanwhile I'm sitting here thinking: let me get this
straight, you want Win98 because the alternative crashes too much? (:
> I'd just like to know how it's done. MS uses port 42 for WINS
> replication. This port is 'officially' assigned to an old
> nameservice of some kind.
It was "IEN 116", whatever that specified. (I don't feel like looking
it up.) But TCP or UDP? Hmmm. AIX /etc/services says UDP. Linux,
Digital and IRIX all say TCP. Windows NT says both. HP-UX says
neither. I guess it must be obsolete, as nobody seems to agree on
which protocol it is.
> I'm not sure what it was for, but MS apparently figured that it
> wasn't being used any more so they grabbed it.
Microsoft? Picking and choosing which standards are worth conforming
to and which ones to trample at will? Say it ain't so....
> Okay, how do you define "a given network"? I do consider the
> broadcast namespace and the WINS server namespace to be disjoint,
> which would put M and H nodes into the 'crude hack' category (which
> might very well be the case, but...).
As above, "a given network" comprises everyone who can talk via
NetBIOS. (And I don't count use of IP numbers or DNS. Those are other
namespaces.)
Peter
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