I have a couple of Samba boxes, one of which is dedicated to WINS. The other I dole out anti-virus stuff to 3,500 odd PCs from. This second one will disappear from the WINS server from time to time which is a bit of a pain. I use nmblookup -R -U <wins_ip> <2nd_box_ip> to test for it. All clients are configured as "P" nodes so WINS is a bit essential. To bring it back I do a smb stp smb start and off it goes. Now this is fine as far as it goes but any PCs updating at that time can get a little upset. There are 500 odd smbd running at any one time. For example these are the entries when it is registered: "VOYAGER#00" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R "VOYAGER#03" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R "VOYAGER#20" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R I understand the #0x corresponds to the entry type but what is the 9 digit number to the right of that ? Can I get away with creating my own entries in the wins.dat file ? Will nmbd use a host file or lmhosts in response to queries or does it just use the wins.dat which it maintains ? Bottom line - How can I ensure my WINS server will always respond to certain queries ? Another bottom line - Why can't my Samba daemons be as stable as my NT boxen (har har har) ? OK why does Samba not re-register occasionally (seems to be about a week, which is the final time out on an entry I believe) Sorry, lots of questions, anyone able to help ? Cheers Jon Gerdes Network Services Westland Helicopters Ltd
JON GERDES wrote:> > I have a couple of Samba boxes, one of which is dedicated to WINS. The other I dole out anti-virus stuff to 3,500 odd PCs from. > > This second one will disappear from the WINS server from time to time which is a bit of a pain. I use nmblookup -R -U <wins_ip> <2nd_box_ip> to test for it. All clients are configured as "P" nodes so WINS is a bit essential. To bring it back I do a smb stp smb start and off it goes. Now this is fine as far as it goes but any PCs updating at that time can get a little upset. There are 500 odd smbd running at any one time. > > For example these are the entries when it is registered: > "VOYAGER#00" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R > "VOYAGER#03" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R > "VOYAGER#20" 983543441 172.16.12.100 44R > > I understand the #0x corresponds to the entry type but what is the 9 digit number to the right of that ?The expiry time, I belive.> > Can I get away with creating my own entries in the wins.dat file ?Not sure, but your not the first to ask...> > Will nmbd use a host file or lmhosts in response to queries or does it just use the wins.dat which it maintains ? > > Bottom line - How can I ensure my WINS server will always respond to certain queries ?The way I handle this is to use the 'dns proxy' option. All my machines are in DNS - and if then need to be found by name then the worst that can happen is that nmbd does a dns lookup - finding the macine. (Unfortunetly this doesn't work for things like logon servers - but it should do the job in your case).> > Another bottom line - Why can't my Samba daemons be as stable as my NT boxen (har har har) ? OK why does Samba not re-register occasionally (seems to be about a week, which is the final time out on an entry I believe) > > Sorry, lots of questions, anyone able to help ? > > Cheers > > Jon Gerdes > Network Services > Westland Helicopters Ltd >-- Andrew Bartlett abartlet@pcug.org.au
Andrew Thanks for the note. That looks exactly right. Not sure how I missed dns proxy and its implications, I've been Samba'ing for several years now and thought I'd seen most problems. The man page makes it pretty clear that this is what I need. Time to RTFM again 8) However, it doesn't explain how boxes "disappear" from nmbd. The worst affendors seem to be smbd's and not NT boxen 8( Cheers Jon Gerdes>>> Andrew Bartlett <abartlet@pcug.org.au> 03/03/01 02:15am >>>JON GERDES wrote: ..........> > Can I get away with creating my own entries in the wins.dat file ?Not sure, but your not the first to ask...> > Will nmbd use a host file or lmhosts in response to queries or does it just use the wins.dat which it maintains ? > > Bottom line - How can I ensure my WINS server will always respond to certain queries ?The way I handle this is to use the 'dns proxy' option. All my machines are in DNS - and if then need to be found by name then the worst that can happen is that nmbd does a dns lookup - finding the macine. (Unfortunetly this doesn't work for things like logon servers - but it should do the job in your case).
Just noticed that according to SWAT and the man page "dns proxy = on" is the default. Presumably, it wasn't in the past and I'd never turned it on. I've been re-using the same smb.conf for ages and several versions now ... Cheers Jon G>>> "JON GERDES" <GERDESJ@gkn-whl.co.uk> 03/05/01 01:14pm >>>Andrew Thanks for the note. That looks exactly right. Not sure how I missed dns proxy and its implications, I've been Samba'ing for several years now and thought I'd seen most problems. The man page makes it pretty clear that this is what I need. Time to RTFM again 8) However, it doesn't explain how boxes "disappear" from nmbd. The worst affendors seem to be smbd's and not NT boxen 8( Cheers Jon Gerdes