VPN and netbios problems - more info

[Ryan Russell]

On Wed, 12 Apr 2000, Stuart Birchall wrote:

>   With this new setup NetBIOS name resolution worked.  From a
> Win98 machine on one subnet we could access shares on a machine
> on the other subnet using its NetBIOS name in UNC.  This was an
> improvement from yesterday, when we needed to use its IP address.
> However, browsing still failed: the two Samba servers weren't
> synchronising their browse lists properly (or indeed at all).
> Windows boxes on either subnet could only see themselves and the
> Samba server.
>
>   Would NT boxes on either side of the VPN link make a better fist
> of collating browse lists?

I'm not that familiar with where Samba is on being a browsemaster.  There
are Samba lists, and those guys are generally very helpful.

If an NT box is elected as browsemaster, and it has a WINS server
programmed, browsing should happen.  (All my browsing problems on
multi-subnet networks have either been WINS corruption or a bad
browsemaster.)

Note that what you're supposed to do is have one (or more) WINS servers,
and program those into each Windows client on both sides.  If they don't
have the WINS server programmed, they can't report themselves to the WINS
server, and the WINS server won't know about them, and can't tell anyone
else.  You could have a perfectly functioning WINS server, but if the WINS
table is empty, then clients are still only going to be able to see
machines they can reach by broadcast.

>
>   I suspect that the fact that the link between the two subnets is
> a VPN is irrelevant (correct me if I'm wrong) and that we need to
> get hold of another mailing list.
>

It *should* be irrelevent.

					Ryan

VPN is sponsored by SecurityFocus.COM