I've pulled my hair out over this as well. I'm still not really certain what the problem is, but I eventually *did* set up DNS on my server, and went to the trouble to get dhcpd to dynamically update bind with a perl script I found [furious the entire time that such a simple, obviously needed facility was not built into dhcpd until the latest beta which I'm not yet willing to install]. Once the Samba server was thus able to reach the client machines by name, these problems with Win98 clients suddenly disappeared. Now the connections are instantaneous, first try every time. What I'd like to know is why I had to enable a dynamically-updating DNS system for this to happen, and if this is a general requirement, why I can't find this process documented. I pretty much had to figure it out on my own. --eeyore> -----Original Message----- > From: samba-admin@us5.samba.org [mailto:samba-admin@us5.samba.org]On > Behalf Of Morgan Toal > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 8:57 PM > To: samba@us5.samba.org > Subject: Multiple login failures problem > > > I am yet another person who is having a problem with Win98 clients > needing to make several attempts before successfully logging in > to our Samba box. I get the "broken pipe" message in the smb.log > just like everyone else. > > This did not seem to be a problem until we got a phat broadband > connection. All the Windows boxes are set to point to our ISP's DNS. > > I am not running DNS on the local network at all. Not even a cacheing > DNS. I don't think this would matter anyway, as several people have > pointed out that the issue is with reverse DNS, and this wasn't even > an issue until we were connected with the outside world. > > Well, that's great, so let's say I go ahead and set up DNS. But we run > DHCP here. Am I supposed to key in everybody's address in the /etc/hosts > file, or the reverse DNS file on my Samba box? Isn't that kind of silly? > > Or should I ask my ISP to do something? > > Thanks for any advice! > > mtoal > > _________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com > >
Morgan Toal wrote:> > Well, that's great, so let's say I go ahead and set up DNS. But we run > DHCP here. Am I supposed to key in everybody's address in the /etc/hosts > file, or the reverse DNS file on my Samba box? Isn't that kind of silly?Nope - just setup a process whereby DNS is updated dynamically by DHCP. You can either: 1) download, compile and install DHCP 3.0 (as has been mentioned on this list today), or 2) download and install DHCP-DNS - a set of Perl scripts which do the job. My own preference is for DHCP-DNS, (until Red Hat releases an RPM with DHCP 3.0) but YMMV. If you want to go the DHCP-DNS route, send me an email, and I'll show you how I set it up. Calvin -- Calvin Dodge Certified Linux Bigot (tm) http://www.caldodge.fpcc.net
I am yet another person who is having a problem with Win98 clients needing to make several attempts before successfully logging in to our Samba box. I get the "broken pipe" message in the smb.log just like everyone else. This did not seem to be a problem until we got a phat broadband connection. All the Windows boxes are set to point to our ISP's DNS. I am not running DNS on the local network at all. Not even a cacheing DNS. I don't think this would matter anyway, as several people have pointed out that the issue is with reverse DNS, and this wasn't even an issue until we were connected with the outside world. Well, that's great, so let's say I go ahead and set up DNS. But we run DHCP here. Am I supposed to key in everybody's address in the /etc/hosts file, or the reverse DNS file on my Samba box? Isn't that kind of silly? Or should I ask my ISP to do something? Thanks for any advice! mtoal _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
I have the same question, but here's a twist - we use WINS also and it's NOT the Linux/Samba box. In /etc/smb.conf I have the name resolve order set to wins first, then host, and lastly broadcast. So, assuming all our workstations are pointed correctly to the WINS server, and assuming the Samba box is also pointed to it correctly, why would there -ever- be a problem doing the reverse lookup for a login?> -----Original Message----- > From: samba-admin@us5.samba.org [mailto:samba-admin@us5.samba.org]On > Behalf Of Morgan Toal > Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 9:57 PM > To: samba@us5.samba.org > Subject: Multiple login failures problem > > > I am yet another person who is having a problem with Win98 clients > needing to make several attempts before successfully logging in > to our Samba box. I get the "broken pipe" message in the smb.log > just like everyone else. > > This did not seem to be a problem until we got a phat broadband > connection. All the Windows boxes are set to point to our ISP's DNS. > > I am not running DNS on the local network at all. Not even a cacheing > DNS. I don't think this would matter anyway, as several people have > pointed out that the issue is with reverse DNS, and this wasn't even > an issue until we were connected with the outside world. > > Well, that's great, so let's say I go ahead and set up DNS. But we run > DHCP here. Am I supposed to key in everybody's address in the /etc/hosts > file, or the reverse DNS file on my Samba box? Isn't that kind of silly? > > Or should I ask my ISP to do something? > > Thanks for any advice! > > mtoal > > _________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com >
So you're saying I can put IP's -without- hostnames in /etc/hosts? Samba doesn't care if it comes back with a blank hostname, or a hostname that doesn't match the incoming login request? Second question: Since my smb.conf file specifies a name resolve order with wins being first, why can't Samba do it's lookup there? I made the change just yesterday and already today several workstations have had the same "Network is busy" problem. PS: I'm a bit surprised that both here and in the newsgroups all I see getting answered are the easy questions! I know the Samba team must be reading, how about a little help here! Don't let my boss make me go back to NT!> -----Original Message----- > From: Ries van Twisk [mailto:ries@franksintl.nl] > Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 8:59 AM > > It's all about resolving a IP address to a name. > > If you can't use danyamic updates with bind (I really don't know if > NT can forward DHCP updates to a DNS server running linux) you > might do this. > > When I did setup my network 1.5 years ago (I wasn't a Unix guru at > that time, and still I don't consider myself as a guru) I just > put this in > my hosts file: > > /etc/hosts > > 192.168.4.1 MyLinux.Box.Com MyLinux > 192.168.4.32 > 192.168.4.34 > 192.168.4.35 > 192.168.4.36 > etc. > etc. > > I just put the complete range of IP adresses my server (in your case > NT) can give out into my /etc/hosts file. > I also had slow logons because Samba try's to do a reverse lookup. > Also as you can see I didn't put a hostname after the IP address. > Also read the samba mailing list about the subject. It was a big issue > a few weeks ago. > > Regards, > Ries van Twisk >
I believe I may have solved my problem and I wanted to share my results with the list.> From: Nelson, John P. [mailto:NelsonJP@genrad.com] > Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 5:32 PM > > >So you're saying I can put IP's -without- hostnames > >in /etc/hosts? > > I don't know about THAT.Apparently it does indeed work (at least on RH6.2). I took the advice of a several people and added the ip's to /etc/hosts with no name and it seemed to clear up the problem (only time will tell for sure though). However - the question remained "WHY was Samba not resolving using WINS"? All those DHCP clients were registering with a WINS server so I shouldn't have had to mess with /etc/hosts.> > Samba doesn't care if it comes back with > >a blank hostname, or a hostname that doesn't match the > >incoming login request? > > The latter is OK.My tests confirm this, as well as the log files I read (ugh). The log files read "UNKNOWN" and Samba doesn't seem to care. Perhaps someone can explain why it does the lookup if it doesn't care about the result(?).> >Second question: Since my smb.conf file specifies a > >name resolve order with wins being first, why can't > >Samba do it's lookup there? I made the change just > >yesterday and already today several workstations have > >had the same "Network is busy" problem. > > I don't know. I'm sorry.Well as it turns out, it's sysadmin error (mine). Diagnosing with nmblookup I found the broadcast (and thus the netmask) were class c instead of class b. In my own defense, that classless notation in smb.conf makes it a little less obvious (and I was -sure- I had fixed it long ago when clients couldn't get connected). It was /24 instead of /16. Yuk. Now my question is - how was Samba able to work at all with it wrong? We never had any problems other than intermittent login failures. I guess the lesson to be gained (and shared) here is "Just because the clients can read/write files on your Samba shares doesn't mean it's configured correctly!" (Side note: This also doesn't explain why the "Network is busy" error happens with shares on NT servers as well, but that's not a Samba issue)> Probably because the easy questions are getting answered by members of the > user community, while the really hard questions require a > response from one of the samba maintainers. > They are occasionally busy with other things.Got me there. I also suspect most people unsubscribe from the list after they've had their question(s) answered. Guess I can't blame them, it's not like the good old days when news traffic was tolerable and you could monitor and participate in a small handful of groups on a regular basis. These days the volume is so great it's hard to imagine having the time to participate much. Thanks for the insights -- David L. Jarvis David@JarvisMountain.com --
Per David's experience, I put my list of ~20 IP's in to /etc/hosts and this seems to have resolved the problem for me also. But it feels so dirty. However, since it's Friday, since this is only a remote office with ~20 users, and since I don't want to come back here next week, I'm not prepared to do much more than band-aid it like this at this point. What I want to know, is why I am experiencing this issue here, and not at my home office which is essentially identically configured? Oh well, at least we have a Q&D solution at this point, and compare smb.conf and dhcpd.conf files. Also thanks to Calvin for th DNS-DHCP info, when I have more time either this or the DHCP v3 is the solution in the long run. mtoal _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
I was concerned with this being a problem here, but it hasn't surfaced and I think David may have it right. My SAMBA box handles DHCP, WINS, and DOMAIN LOGONS, and my Win98 clients quickly connect without a problem. Something must be broken in the M$ version of WINS <grin> -----Original Message----- From: David L. Jarvis [mailto:David@JarvisMountain.com] Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 5:55 AM To: Samba Subject: RE: Multiple login failures problem> -----Original Message----- > From: Morgan Toal [mailto:morgan_toal@yahoo.com] > Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 1:31 AM > > Per David's experience, I put my list of ~20 IP's in to > /etc/hosts and this seems to have resolved the problem > for me also. But it feels so dirty.Agreed. But are you running WINS anywhere? If not, you might want to consider having Samba run it, and have your pc's point to it as their WINS server also. I'd be willing to be that would fix it as well (provided of course that you set your 'name resolve order' in smb.conf to have 'wins' as it's first method).> However, since it's Friday, since this is only a remote > office with ~20 users, and since I don't want to come back > here next week, I'm not prepared to do much more than band-aid > it like this at this point. > > What I want to know, is why I am experiencing this issue > here, and not at my home office which is essentially > identically configured? Oh well, at least we have a > Q&D solution at this point, and compare smb.conf > and dhcpd.conf files. > > Also thanks to Calvin for th DNS-DHCP info, when I have more > time either this or the DHCP v3 is the solution in the long run.-- David L. Jarvis David@JarvisMountain.com --