Howdy folks:
Hi. It's me again. I've posted before about browsing problems, etc.
Here's the setup:
An isolated LAN (most clients have modems for dialling out) with
one linux/samba machine (RedHat 4.2, kernel 2.0.30, samba 1.9.18p8)
and ~20 win95 (OSR/2.1) clients. We used to have Netware 4.11
until the new PC/lan guy decided we didn't it any more (our old
server now runs win95 -ugh). The clients now run TCP/IP only.
Some still have the (now useless) IPX/SPX stack loaded (just a
leftover from our Netware days).
We've been having intermittent network problems with browsing on
the win95 clients. Every few days (or week or two) the browse list
disappears (but the Net Use commands still work). I can use
smbclient from the linux box to see/attach-to shares on all windoze
clients, but the windoze clients can't see each other. I have
samba set as the domain & local masters, etc (still can't get WINS
to work though). I'm also running apache and a few other things on
the linux box, but that shouldn't cause any problems (I think).
The real kicker is, I know samba (at least I'm pretty sure) isn't
the cause, but yesterday (when I wasn't here) the PC-LAN guy
disconnected my linux box from the network, claiming to have
"cured" our problem. We may be pushing the length limit on a coax
ethernet (we inherited the cabling when we moved into this part of
the building) but I have no network analysis hardware (or much
experience, but neither does the PC/LAN guy).
Anybody got any ideas? What kinds of linux tools are there to
track down the cause of this problem? Could it be samba?
Any help would be greatly appreciated (I'd let that weenie blame it
on linux/samba and get away with it).
Thanks in advance, Steve Arnold
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Stephen L. Arnold Senior Systems Engineer
ENSCO Inc. email: arnold.steve@ensco.com
P.O. Box 5488 www: http://www.ensco.com
Vandenberg AFB, CA 93437 voice: 805.734.8232 x68838
fax: 805.734.4779
#include <std_disclaimer.h>
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Hi,> We've been having intermittent network problems with browsing on > the win95 clients. Every few days (or week or two) the browse list > disappears (but the Net Use commands still work). I can use > smbclient from the linux box to see/attach-to shares on all windoze > clients, but the windoze clients can't see each other. I have > samba set as the domain & local masters, etc (still can't get WINS > to work though). I'm also running apache and a few other things on > the linux box, but that shouldn't cause any problems (I think). > > The real kicker is, I know samba (at least I'm pretty sure) isn't > the cause, but yesterday (when I wasn't here) the PC-LAN guy > disconnected my linux box from the network, claiming to have > "cured" our problem. We may be pushing the length limit on a coax > ethernet (we inherited the cabling when we moved into this part of > the building) but I have no network analysis hardware (or much > experience, but neither does the PC/LAN guy).Step one: Get rid of your PC-LAN guy, or at least hit him hard. The "blame what I understand least" approach to network troubleshooting seems quite common - I've come across it myself - I stamped it out *quick*. Step two: Deinstall the IPX stack on your clients. I have encountered (and heard reports from others) that Win95 sometimes gets confused about which protocol it announces itself with. In english it means that your legacy IPX clients are swapping their browse lists via IPX, and the TCP/IP clients don't get the full list as a direct result, thus the problem. We suffered with this problem badly for many months until we completely eradicated IPX from the network. Step three: If you still don't get joy, try this: There are other reasons for this problem as well, caused by the way browsing works. A single workstation on your network is responsible for collating and maintaining the browse list. Should this machine be turned off or rebooted (a common occurence with 95) your browse list vanishes as a result, and takes a bit of time before a new browse list is created on another machine. How does Windows choose which machine? All the machines collaborate and hold an election to determine who will be the browse master. The more "advanced" the machine, the more chance of winning an election. For example, a Win95 machine will beat a Win v3.1 machine, but a WinNT machine will beat a Win95.>From the sounds of your network you only have Win95 machines on thenetwork - this means that any machine could be a browse master, and when that machine is rebooted, bang goes your browse list. The solution here is to pick a machine that is the server, and make it the only machine eligible to be browse master by switching off eligibility in your clients, or make your Samba server the browse master (Samba has declared itself the highest in the food chain, and beats WinNT in elections by default!). Regards, Graham -- ----------------------------------------- graham@vwv.com "There's a moon VWV Interactive over Bourbon Street tonight... -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature Size: 2018 bytes Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature Url : http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/attachments/19981201/da5f9f47/smime.bin
Langsteiner Martin ZFF IE-F
1998-Dec-02 08:47 UTC
samba blamed for network problems (help!)
Hi! On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Stephen L Arnold wrote: <...snip>>We've been having intermittent network problems with browsing on >the win95 clients. Every few days (or week or two) the browse list >disappears (but the Net Use commands still work). I can use >smbclient from the linux box to see/attach-to shares on all windoze >clients, but the windoze clients can't see each other. I have >samba set as the domain & local masters, etc (still can't get WINS >to work though). I'm also running apache and a few other things on >the linux box, but that shouldn't cause any problems (I think).<snap...> Network debugging is a real hair raiser o-:E Here are two vague hints: 1) I once setup our Samba server (Linux 2.0.33, Samba 1.9.18p10, ! WinNT domain !) as 'local master = yes', 'preferred master = yes' It managed to become the local master browser for our workgroup, but somehow this seemed to be ignored by the WinXXX machines. From time to time, there was a fight on the net between Samba and some WFWG or WinNT machine ('sending election packet....won election on workgroup ...'). See logfile /usr/local/samba/var/log.nmb. We then had to set our Samba server to 'local master = no', 'preferred master = no', and, of course, 'domain master = no'. 2) Newer PC Ethernet adapters may be switched to 'full duplex mode'. In this case, older network adapters might have to wait a _long_ time for their turn. (I have to admit, this happened to us in a LAN where NT machines should coexist with Digital Equipment PDP computers...) This problem was solved by putting the PDP's into a separate network, guarded by a switch that kept out any NT network traffic. BTW, is the NetBEUI stack loaded on the WinXX clients? good luck, Martin