Samba, names, and windows 2000
 

I'm currently running a "secret" Slackware 10.2 server in my school. It's hosting an internal website, but the only way to access it is with the IP address, or the name that Samba is set to.

Samba: 3.0.21c
Linux kernel: 2.6.15.6
Distro: Slackware-10.2/current (Sat Mar 4 19:54:26 CST 2006)

The problem I'm having is getting the windows 2000 computers to recognize the name.

On the XP and NT4 computers, it alls works perfectly; the shared folder can be accessed through "My Network Places" and putting in the Samba name points a browser to the website.

On the 2000 computers, all it can do is see the computer in the network tree, but trying to access it returns a "\\sambaname is not accessible. The network path was not found."

Trying to "ping sambaname" returns "unknown host sambaname."

Yesterday, after a while of poking at it, I finally got the computer to somehow recognize the server name, but the computers are set to restore to a default configuration upon reboot.

I'm not completely sure how it's working now, but I want Samba to emulate a windows machine, I don't want it to attempt to act as a domain server or whatever to the other computers (the network is probably pretty fragile)

As far as I can tell, the 2000 and XP network configuration is mostly identical. Neither have any specified WINS servers, but the XPs are set to "Use NetBIOS setting from the DHCP server" while the 2000s are set to "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP"; setting the 2000 to use setting from DHCP doesn't solve the problem.

Resolv.conf specifies a domain server (though the host is unknown), and three name servers (IP addresses). I can't tell what each name server is for, but they all have a number of open ports.

Hopefully this is enough info, if anybody needs more I'll try and respond as quickly as I can.

Thanks in advance!

try setting samba to announce its existance, i have had similar issue and found that once i set samba to announce its presence it worked fine.....good luck and very kool having a hidden server on site.

I'll go about giving it another go tomorrow. I'll set the LM Announce from Auto to Yes, disable the local master option, lower the OS level, and change the workgroup to the same workgroup as most of the workstations.

Sigh; still no progress. I just think that these win2000 computers are screwed up. But, if anyone can think up something that could help, I'll gladly listen.