I have set up a Samba server on my small network at home, which has a RH8.0, XP, and 2k box. They all run behind a Linksys router that acts as a DHCP server. The Samba/Linux server acts as a WINS server which the router (through DHCP) points the other computers to for NetBIOS name resolution.

Everything that I've mentioned so far works just fine. What doesn't work is that when the Linux box becomes the master browser, no one can browse the network. If the either the XP or 2k computer are the browse master, everything is in working order. I've tried every combination of:

local master = yes/no
preferred master = yes/no
os level = 1/34
domain master = yes/no

that I can come up with. Nothing seems to work. I've seen a couple old threads on other boards using a search engine that had people complaining of the same issues, but none had replies. Does anyone have any suggestions? Or need more information from me to make them?

I've sent a bug report to the Samba team concerning this. I haven't received a reply yet, and I am not holding my breath. Does anyone have a suggestion of how to fix this problem or where to look for more information? I'm out of ideas on where to look or what to try doing to fix the problem.

I've tooled around with this problem briefly in the last day. I thought of a couple things that might be helpful and I tried a few new things.

First, I tried synchronizing the usernames and passwords between the Win computers and the Linux box. I thought there might be some small chance that there was an authentication going on there. Didn't work.

Then I tried turning off the firewall on the Linux server in case the was refusing packets on whatever ports the browse requests were coming in on. Still didn't work.


Then I realized something - When there is no master browser present the two windows computers can seem themselves but not each other. I'm not sure if they each consider themselves the master browser and don't have the other on their browse list or what. Anyway, when the Linux box is the master browser I get an error saying that "That workgroup is not available at this time" or something to that effect. What's the difference here?

gauge, make sure your workgroud in SMB.conf match your workgroup in the Win boxes and your linux box should be the only browse master. You might need to manually resgistered your win boxes in the host file in Linux. That's what I have to do on my network. I'm still trying to get my win boxes to automatically register to my RH8 server. Hope this help.

I had a somewhat similar situation here not long ago; I have 6 machines on my LAN, four of them running Windows 98 and the other two running Mandrake. The Mandy 8.1 machine serves as the firewall/router/internet gateway for all.

One of the Win98 machines, and the Mandy 9.0 machine, were not visible to LinNeighborhood on the Mandy 8.1 machine or to Network Neighborhood on the other Win98 machines, although the Win98 drives WERE mapped on the other machine. On the one Win98 box, Neighborhood insisted that the network was not available even when I was viewing the drive content of another machine.

I finally found that by going to Control Panel, Network, on the one 98 box, and changing the Master Browser option from "auto" to "disabled", then re-booting it, it would appear on the rest of the network. I then also disabled this option in Samba on the Mandy 9.0 box, re-booted it, and now all of them work as expected.

As best I can determine, the two boxes were deciding at boot time that they were the master browser, and as such, could not participate in the "election" process for the rest of the LAN. Disabling the MB option forced them to behave...

Thanks for the posts, guys.

All three computers (XP, 2k, and RH8.0) are in the same workgroup. The network works just fine as long as the Linux box doesn't become the master browser (and I am quite sure of this because I check the log files every 15 seconds or so when testing and as soon as it says it has become master browsing, Network Neighborhood ceases to function).

Now, as for two computers trying to be the master browser at the same time, I would love to know how to disable the option in 2k and XP. I may be blind as a bat, but I didn't see the option anywhere in the network setup for either. Could anyone tell me where to find it?

I believe Microsuck remove the master browse option from NT, 2K, and XP. It support to look for a browse master at boot and if none found then it will go through an election. As always, it doesn't too great. This is what I found on Microsoft site.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;318332

Hmm. It's stupid that they took that option out. At least I'm not blind, though.

Perhaps there is a registry entry that you can manipulate to change this option. I'll look around for it. If anyone finds it, let me know.

Oh, also... I forgot to ask this up to this point...

If I were to set up the Linux box as a PDC (which, if I'm not mistaken, makes it the master browser by default and eliminates the need for elections), does anyone think this could alleviate the problem (by circumventing it, as it were) ?

It quite well might, but I'd be sure to reboot the Windows boxes after making that change just to be certain that they detect it.

I stopped updating my M$ products with Win98SE because I could see the direction they were going. I'm switching over as rapidly as I can while continuing to support my Windows-using clients. Eventually I'll probably have Linux on all but one of the machines, with that one still running Win98SE...

I'm totally new to Linux, but I'm trying to learn quickly. I can DEFINITELY see why people praise it over and above microsoft products. If you know it backwards and forwards you can truly be the master of your computer... unlike windows, which is not stable or nearly as versatile, it seems.

I'm trying to get my RH8 server to do DHCP, PDC, Samba, web, and mail. So far, I ran into some problem. I'll let you know if it work out.....

That is exactly what I'm trying to do. I want to set up the following, one step at a time, in the order listed:

1) File server (general file sharing)
2) SSH server
3) WINS server
4) DHCP server
5) PDC
6) Router (including firewall and IP Masquerading)
7) DNS server
8) FTP server
9) HTTP server
10) E-Mail server

It's a tall order, I know. So far I have 1-3 working (except for this small browsing problem, but I hope steps 4 and 5 will resolve that). I'm just taking it one step at a time to get all this done. Learning a ton along the way.

And same goes to you... if you figure this out, PLEASE post the solution. I am completely out of ideas, and it seems like most of the other people trolling this board are as well.

guage73, do you have to do anything special for WINS to work? DHCP is really easy to setup. All you need is create dhcpd.conf file in /etc. Here is my dhcpd.conf file Hope this will help.

#This is my dhcp server setting
default-lease-time 600;
max-lease-time 7200;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 192.168.1.255;
option routers 192.168.1.1;
ddns-update-style ad-hoc;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
option netbios-name-servers 192.168.1.1;
option domain-name "cojo-online.com";
subnet 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.1.10 192.168.1.100;
range 192.168.1.150 192.168.1.200;
}

WINS is a breeze to set up. All you have to do to start it up is add the following to your smb.conf.

wins support = yes
wins proxy = no

After that you have to do one of two things:

1) Add the IP address of your WINS server to your Network Properties on your clients.

2) If all your computers get their WINS directions from your DHCP server, then you can have your DHCP server point them to the WINS server by adding whatever command is necessary with the correct IP address. This will vary depending on what performs DHCP for you, but I'm sure you can figure it out.

Since we seem to have the same goals in this, perhaps you should email me and we can compare notes on all this stuff.