[CentOS] WINS server (nmbd) puzzle

[Craig White]

On Sep 6, 2011, at 11:09 AM, Kenneth Porter wrote:

> --On Tuesday, September 06, 2011 6:50 AM -0700 Craig White 
> <craigwhite at azapple.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Are you aware that elections take 15 minutes? If you actually restart
>> the nmbd process on your samba based wins server, you need to wait to
>> get a browsing list.
> 
> Oddly, when I restart samba, I see in nmbd.log:
> 
> [2011/09/06 11:00:24, 4] nmbd/nmbd_winsserver.c:wins_write_database(2353)
>  wins_write_database: Dump of WINS name list.
> 
> And a long list of client names. But "nmblookup -U 127.0.0.1 [clientname]" 
> tells me that name isn't found, for any of the clients seen in the list.
> 
> Could this be workgroup-related? I have both an AD domain and a workgroup 
> on the subnet, plus customer and vendor machines with their own workgroups.
----
Having various domains and workgroups on the same subnet could impact the 'elections' of WINS master browsers - in fact, an AD server is pretty much intent on winning elections so it may never work as expected.

Still - you always have to keep in mind that it really does take 15 minutes if you restart nmbd service on Linux/samba server.

Craig