samba - Mar 1999 - Samba, WINS, many subnets, etc

> The problem you'll have with this is that lmhosts like hosts needs to
be distributed
> to all machines.
Is it possible to declare the samba server as the WINS server for all machines
(which can be done via DHCP), and then prime the running samba with an lmhosts
generated via the DNS database?  What would happen if a machine with a given
IP tried to register itself with a different name than what the WINS server
is told it should be via lmhosts?
> If you only have a small number of servers that all the clients are
connecting
> to, you could distribute a limited lmhosts to all the client machines.
I was thinking a single server doing WINS, probably around 2500 active clients
at a given time.  The server in mind is fairly mighty, I'm not overly
worried
about load right now.

I think the goal is mainly to let the clients connect to each other, and see
one another in Network Neighborhood.  (I've warned my superiors about the
vague reliability of NN).
> The thing you have to remember with all this is that the client determines
it's
> own name, and workgroup.  This is NOT controlled from any central server.
That's what I've been mentioning to the people encouraging me in this
project.
> Another thing you could look at at least with the NT boxes is using the
> "use DNS to resolve windows names" option.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the machines are Win95/98.

On Thu, 25 Mar 1999, Brandon Hume wrote:
> Is it possible to declare the samba server as the WINS server for all
machines
> (which can be done via DHCP), and then prime the running samba with an
lmhosts
> generated via the DNS database?  What would happen if a machine with a
given
> IP tried to register itself with a different name than what the WINS server
> is told it should be via lmhosts?
We tell the Win95 PC's (via DHCP) what their WINS server is, their DNS
config (the Win95 box needs to have DNS enable for this to work), and
their IP. We use one WINS server (currently a WinNT4 box) and it handles
all of this just fine. If you have enabled DNS on the clients, I believe
that makes the client an H-node, thus it will try serveral different name
resolution methods. (NB, DNS, HOSTS, LMHOSTS, etc.)
> I was thinking a single server doing WINS, probably around 2500 active
clients
> at a given time.  The server in mind is fairly mighty, I'm not overly
worried
> about load right now.
We have over 1k clients, and have absolutely no problems with this setup.
We DO NOT use any lmhosts files.
> I think the goal is mainly to let the clients connect to each other, and
see
> one another in Network Neighborhood.  (I've warned my superiors about
the
> vague reliability of NN).
With the exception of timing (sometimes it takes 15m-1h for a machine to
show up in the list), it works wonderfully.
> > The thing you have to remember with all this is that the client
determines it's
> > own name, and workgroup.  This is NOT controlled from any central
server.
> 
> That's what I've been mentioning to the people encouraging me in
this project.
As long as the WINS server is configured on the client, it doesn't matter.
We have about a dozen domain/workgroups and they interoperate just fine -
provided they all use the WINS server (the _SAME_ WINS server).
> > Another thing you could look at at least with the NT boxes is using
the
> > "use DNS to resolve windows names" option.
As I mentioned, turning on DNS effectively does this for Win95 clients.
> Unfortunately, the vast majority of the machines are Win95/98.
The only interesting thing I've seen in Win98 has been native support for
SCSI tape drives. Other than that, I prefer to stay far away from Win98 -
the 'Active Desktop/IE' gives me the willys. 

Oh, BTW: we have about 28 subnets. Our Cisco 5500 RSM's are set up to
forward broadcast NB name requests to our WINS server. That basically
makes configuring the WINS server less important, but with WINS
configured broadcasts go way down, and I _LIKE_ that. ;)

                                [Darrin]

--
"I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious." - A.
Einstein

Darrin M. Gorski, Research Computer Systems Network Support
Scientific Research Laboratories, Ford Motor Company
Internet: dgorski@ford.com | Tel/Fax: +1 (313) 248-3753