samba - Jan 2006 - bug - 3.0.14, 3.0.21 intractable browsing problems - help needed

Hello:

This browsing problem is not going away. We have followed the how-to,
used someone else's "known good" config, perused packet dumps
until we
were blue, and tried replicating the setup in a laboratory environment
to see if it was site-specific.

The problem is still there:

If the Samba server is the domain browser, the Network Neighborhood (or
My Network Places) for the domain is empty. As soon we reset the server
to not be a browser of any sort, another machine on the network takes
over, and we see all the hosts. This is even though we can connect to
the Samba PDC and view shares, and even though the Samba PDC knows it's
the browser.

I am at a loss as to how to troubleshoot this. Samba makes wonderful,
wordy logs, but I don't see anything wrong. I've looked through packet
captures, and I have no idea what a "normal" capture is supposed to
look
like. We can see all the broadcasts. As I've said, we've tried this in a
lab, and we get the same result. It also happens with 3.0.21.

I'm prepared to go through a step-by-step process in order to track this
down. I'm on a mission. I want to know what's going here, and I think
finding out would benefit the Samba community. But I need assistance
from people who can interpret the log information and understand
SMB/CIFS better than I do.

Perhaps we've missed something really obvious, but I doubt it. At any
rate, I would be happy to be proved wrong.

Asking most sincerely for help,

-Stephen-

Stephen Bosch wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> This browsing problem is not going away. We have followed the how-to,
> used someone else's "known good" config, perused packet dumps
until we
> were blue, and tried replicating the setup in a laboratory environment
> to see if it was site-specific.
> 
> The problem is still there:
> 
> If the Samba server is the domain browser, the Network Neighborhood (or
> My Network Places) for the domain is empty. As soon we reset the server
> to not be a browser of any sort, another machine on the network takes
> over, and we see all the hosts. This is even though we can connect to
> the Samba PDC and view shares, and even though the Samba PDC knows it's
> the browser.
> 
> I am at a loss as to how to troubleshoot this. Samba makes wonderful,
> wordy logs, but I don't see anything wrong. I've looked through
packet
> captures, and I have no idea what a "normal" capture is supposed
to look
> like. We can see all the broadcasts. As I've said, we've tried this
in a
> lab, and we get the same result. It also happens with 3.0.21.
> 
> I'm prepared to go through a step-by-step process in order to track
this
> down. I'm on a mission. I want to know what's going here, and I
think
> finding out would benefit the Samba community. But I need assistance
> from people who can interpret the log information and understand
> SMB/CIFS better than I do.
> 
> Perhaps we've missed something really obvious, but I doubt it. At any
> rate, I would be happy to be proved wrong.
> 
> Asking most sincerely for help,
> 
> -Stephen-
stephen, in your earlier posts, you mentioned that these are windows 
2000 clients; is that correct?

perhaps, just perhaps, it has something to do with windows 2000.  the 
"known good" setup i sent you only has winxp and linux/samba clients
on
it and i do not have a way to test windows 2000 clients.

are there any registry-related keys or security settings for windows 
2000 computers that my affect their ability to receive browse lists from 
a non-windows domain browser?

on any one of the windows 2000 computers, what is the output of the 
nbtstat command line program with/without the linux computer as the pdc?

does anything show up in the windows 2000 logs about browsing control?

i have been researching this problem, to no avail for you.  is your 
samba computer also the pdc (sorry i can't recall for the moment)?

i would like to keep plugging away at this and i think we maybe should 
look at things from the windows side for a bit to see if something may 
be done there.

check out these microsoft support articles (they may or may not solve 
the problem instantly, but they may give some clues as to where to go).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/168821/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/135404/en-us

these two links apply to windows 2000 and not windows xp so i'm thinking 
that some browsing differences on the windows side may exist between the 
two.

also, i can give you the option of posting this problem in my own 
support forum at http://messinet.com/modules.php?name=Forums if you feel 
like no one else on this list is working on this with you.

i'll keep searching.  for the first time in a long time, i'm wishing i 
had a w2k computer, but only to test...

-anthony

-- 
My Website: http://messinet.com
My Online Gallery: 
http://messinet.com/modules.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=visit&lid=3

Stephen Bosch wrote:
> 
> If the Samba server is the domain browser, the Network Neighborhood (or
> My Network Places) for the domain is empty. As soon we reset the server
> to not be a browser of any sort, another machine on the network takes
> over, and we see all the hosts. This is even though we can connect to
> the Samba PDC and view shares, and even though the Samba PDC knows it's
> the browser.
If you use "smbclient -L <server>" on the PDC's command
line, does it
list the hosts in the local network?