Linux and NetBios name resolution

essdeeay · 11-05-2005, 02:15 PM

Windows will happily broadcast to obtain an address for a given name, can Linux be made to do that? I'd rather avoid using lmhosts as machine names sometimes change, and there is no DNS/DHCP server locally.

Thanks,
Steve

peter_robb · 11-06-2005, 10:35 AM

Look at the Lisa package..

cm0901 · 11-13-2005, 06:02 AM

sorry, could i have more info on this? i'm trying to apply netbios local resolution to MacOSX (which is bsd-based) and i'd like to have more info. thanks.

baldy3105 · 11-14-2005, 11:37 AM

Thats because Windows uses a horrible networking protocol called Netbios, which anybody with any sense has nothing to do with.

As it happens linux is capable of catering to Windows little foibles using a package called samba which allows full windows networking functionality on linux.

www.samba.org is a good place to start, and I'd be surprised if your distribution didn't provide it.

cm0901 · 11-14-2005, 11:40 AM

of course i have samba and everything is ok, but i mean a "lower level" of netbios resolution, e.g. with a ping or entering "http://computername" to open a site on another pc.

linuxamateur-two-too · 11-14-2005, 02:47 PM

Lisa is the bird for you. You´ll find her at http://lisa-home.sourceforge.net

Download her and modify sourceforge´s instructions for slackware, so they suite your distro.

Lisa is heaven´s gift to lazy dummies like me. I don't even need to configure Samba. My only problem was, that Suse has no instructions on how to open the firewall for Lisa.

baldy3105 · 11-15-2005, 11:10 AM

You're getting DNS and Netbios name resolution confused with each other. Windows does allow this crossover of name resolution and I'll tell you it causes all manner of mis-diagnosies in name resolution problems.

I'm not sure if samba allows DNS resolution by netbios name or not but maybe thats what lisa does.