The browsing capability in Network Neighborhood disppears periodically.
Usually, double-clicking on Network Neighborhood gives us a list of all
the NT and Unix/samba boxes on the network segment (i.e. in the
Workgroup). When browsing disppears, all we see is *Entire Network*,
which has nothing in it.
We run a unix/NT network with 6 unix servers and about 80 NT clients. We
are running NT Workstation 4.0 SP3 only ... not NT Server. All unix
servers run Solaris 2.5/2.6 and Samba 1.9.18p10 with encrypted passwords
enabled. Here is my smb.conf for our main file server. I have enabled
preferred master on this one server, and increased the OS level on all
unix servers to values ranging from 45 to 50.
Restarting a unix server solves the problem temporarily, but it returns
after a few days or a week.
************snip*****************
; Configuration file for smbd.
[global]
oplocks = no
protocol = NT1
os level = 50
preferred master = yes
debug level = 1
printing = sysv
printcap name = /usr/local/samba/lib/myprintcap
load printers = yes
guest account = nobody
security = user
wins support = yes
server string = Samba %v on %h
workgroup = WORKGROUP
preserve case = yes
; Next line added for Mac DAVE compatibility (24 June 98, js):
short preserve case = yes
case sensitive = no
mangle case = no
alternate permissions = yes
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_KEEPALIVE
message command = /bin/mail -s 'message from %f on %m' root \
< %s; rm %s
log file = /usr/local/samba/log.%m
dead time = 15
update encrypted = no
encrypt passwords = yes
include = /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf.%U
********************snip*******************
When I run smbclient -L for any of the unix servers, here are the last few
lines:
**************snip***************
This machine has a browse list:
Server Comment
--------- -------
EMPM Samba 1.9.18p10 on empm
This machine has a workgroup list:
Workgroup Master
--------- -------
WORKGROUP JOHNSON
**************snip**************
Note JOHNSON is one of the NT Workstation clients.
My hypothesis is that these NT clients are participating in master browser
elections, and they are winning the elections, becoming the master browser
and then cannot actually perform the duties of master browser. Based on
this hypothesis I have tried to skew the elections in favor of the unix
boxes with higher OS levels and by enabling preferred master on one of
them. It doesn*t seem to be working.
Restarting one of the unix serves solves the problem. Browsing returns to
the network neighborhood and smbclient -L servername results in the
following:
**************snip************
This machine has a workgroup list:
Workgroup Master
--------- -------
WORKGROUP EMPM
**************snip************
Now the main file server *empm* is seen as the *Master* (Master Browser?).
As I mentioned before, browsing has returned to the network neighborhood.
Is my hypothesis correct? If so, how can I get my servers to win the
browser elections?
Peter Stoddard <stoddard@empm.cdpr.ca.gov>
System Administrator
Environmental Monitoring and Pest Management Branch
California Department of Pesticide Regulation
(916) 730-0490, (916) 324-4168 or (916) 324-4078
You wrote:> The browsing capability in Network Neighborhood > disppears periodically.I likewise have a problem with browsing and NT clients. In my case the log would appear to indicate that the samba server is becomming the browse master, but the workgroup shows up empty in the browse list. I was interested by the output you quote from smbclient -L. I have tried to get something similar from my smbclient to compare but only got a list of shares on the samba server. Were you using any other option that '-L'? -- Steve Fosdick Internet: fosdicsj@aom.bt.co.uk Voice: +44 1473 642987 MSMAIL: BTEA/BTLIP23/FOSDICSJ Fax: +44 1473 646656 BOAT: FOSDICSJ Snail: B29/G34, BT Labs, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, IP5 7RE, England.
On 26 Oct 1998 at 16:11, Peter Stoddard wrote:> My hypothesis is that these NT clients are participating in master browser > elections, and they are winning the elections, becoming the master browser > and then cannot actually perform the duties of master browser. Based on > this hypothesis I have tried to skew the elections in favor of the unix > boxes with higher OS levels and by enabling preferred master on one of > them. It doesn*t seem to be working.We found that we had to disable the browser on all the NT machines (6 in our case) to stop them trying to win elections. I found an article in the NT FAQ (www.ntfaq.com) which gave the Registry entries to change. To set a machine as a "Non-browser" edit the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser \Parameters\MaintainServerList and change it to "No". Also, in Control Panel, Services, change the "startup" behaviour of the "Computer Browser" service to "disabled". Reboot the machine so that these changes can take effect. Once you do that to *EVERY* NT machine, you shouldn't have any more elections. By the way, you could create a '.reg' file similar to the "NT4_PlainPassword.reg" file that comes with Samba. It would probably save you a bit of time going around your 80 machines. On a similar note, I have a browsing problem that is a little different. This may have been answered before, but I couldn't find anything in the Browsing.txt or the FAQ. We have set up a dial-in system using the RAS server on our NT server. The NT server has browsing disabled as above. When we connect to the dial-in server, we can't see anything in NN, but we can map drives by explicitly defining the UNC path to the Samba server. Machines on the LAN have no problem browsing. Any ideas? Something odd (which may be a red herring) is that when we map the drives using the UNC path, it must be UPPERCASE to work properly! The LAN machines can use either case when mapping. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers, Duncan Kinnear, McCarthy and Associates, Email: duncan@McCarthy.co.nz PO Box 764, McLean Towers, Phone: +64 6 834 3360 Shakespeare Road, Napier, New Zealand. Fax: +64 6 834 3369 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Providing Integrated Software to the Meat Processing Industry for over 10 years