samba - Aug 2005 - Shares get disconnected and cannot reconnect over VPN

Hello samba,

  I have an issue with OpenVPN 2.0 and Samba 3.0.14a.

  My  setup  consists  in  a  routed  VPN  (thus server and clients are on
  different  subnets)  between a linux OpenVPN 2.0 server and some Windows
  2000 VPN clients. Samba is the PDC and is a WINS server.

  The  VPN clients work, broswing works, and I see the clients registering
  on the server's WINS in /var/lib/samba/wins.dat.

  When  I  connect  to  a share, I get connected and can use it, but after
  about  8  minutes  of  inactivity  (no  open  files),  the  share  gets
  disconnected,  and  when  I  try to use it again, Windows says it cannot
  access  the drive. After some retries, I can connect again and the whole
  thing repeats from the beginning.

  I   have  tried also using PPTP (which puts me on the same subnet as the
  server,  not on a different one) and basically it seems I am getting the
  same behaviour.

  Obviosuly the same clients, when connected directly to the server's lan,
  show no issues at all and work flawlessly.

  I don't know if PPTP lets broacasts go through or not. OpenVPN does not,
  since  it's routed and not bridged. I assume that apart from speed (512K
  on  WAN connections) broadcasts are the only differences between LAN and
  WAN set-ups.

  Is  there  something I missed with broadcasts? I assume that since I use
  WINS, I don't need broadcasts to make Samba work. Am I wrong?

-- 

  Fabio "Kurgan" Muzzi

I reply to myself to add some information: I have think that I have traced
it  down  to  a  name  resolving issue. I don't know why but sometimes the
client  asks  the  wrong  WINS  server  (I  have  two:  one on the locally
connected  LAN an another one on the other side of the VPN) to resolve the
server's  name,  and  the request fails, then the client cannot connect to
the server until it retries the request to the right wins server.

I  have  tried  setting  an  entry in the client's LMHOSTS file, but still
sometimes it asks the wrong wins server.

Maybe  I  have  found  a workaround: if I use the IP address of the server
instead of the netbios name, the client never disconnects from the server,
even if idle.

Now   the  question  is:  why  if  I  use  the  netbios  name,  the client
disconnects  from  the server after about 8 minutes idle, and if I use the
IP address it never disconnects?

Maybe   this   is   a   win2000   issue   (as  a client) more than a Samba
issue...






-- 

  Fabio "Kurgan" Muzzi