CIFS and WINS

[Jeff_Traigle]

We've recently installed some HP-UX systems runnign Samba for customers who do not have a corresponding Windows application server. In order to allow these systems to be available in the Network Neighborhood, we set the local_master variable to true in smb.conf. Our Windows guru is seeing the following performance problem now:

1) Some of the Samba servers have the LOCAL_MASTER set to true
2) When the Samba service starts, and at regular intervals thereafter, they register a <1E> record in the WINS database for the JDOSSN domain.
3) The <1E> record is a group name, and as such it should contain multiple values. When the Samba servers register, however, they are not being appended to the record. Instead, the record is being overwritten each time a Samba server sends a name registration request.
4) Because the <1E> record is constantly being overwritten, it does not contain entries for the domain controllers JDOSSNDC01 & JDOSSNDC02. This is causing significant slowness when logging in, browsing the network, and connecting to shared folders. The slowness is intermittent, because NetBIOS names are cached for 10 minutes.
5) Static entries are not overwritten by dynamic name registrations, so I created a static <1E> record with the address of the PDC emulator (JDOSSNDC01). This resolved the problems with slowness, but I have no idea how it will affect the Samba servers. We need to check and see if we can still browse the shares on the Unix boxes.

B8725AA HP CIFS Server A.01.10 is used. (Based on Samba 2.2.8a.) Windows Server is 2003. Anyone seen anything like this before?

[IT Response]

As far as I know CIFS does not work on win2003 just yet. All I know is that it works on win 2000 server but not on 2003.

[Norman_21]

Hello,

Are the CIFS Server configured as a Primary Domain controller or a member server?

What about if you re-run the samba_setup again and say NO to WINS? what will happen?

Also, have you considered using SFU instead?
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/downloads/default.asp

Thought to throw my $0.2 cents

[Jeff_Traigle]

One of the Windows guys dug into this more and it actually turned out to be a problem resulting from WINS being bound to both interfaces on the Win2k3 servers. Some CIFS servers weren't showing up in the browse list as a result of this configuration also. Not sure of all the details since I avoid Windows as much as possible, but it's been working a few months since he changed the binding.