I just installed a new file/backup server running on FC3 and I already had an FC2 system running DNS, DHCP, web, email, gateway, etc. I also have a Windows Server 2003 system running MSSQL 2000 for accounting software. The purpose of the FC3 backup server is to store all the important stuff from the other two servers, I would also like it to be a backup DNS and DHCP server, but that is another post. The problem is that the Windows Server 2003 system refuses to browse the network at all, I can manually type in a full network path to any other windows client on the network and I can browse that computer, but it won't even recognize that either of the Fedora servers exists! The FC2 server is the master browser on the network and in the 2003 server system event log, I get a couple of errors like:
"The browser service was unable to retrieve a list of servers from the browser master \\<fc2_server> on the network \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{85E84FC7-57AC-4961-BCBB-F9A0D08E4275}."
and
"The browser service has failed to retrieve the backup list too many times on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{85E84FC7-57AC-4961-BCBB-F9A0D08E4275}. The backup browser is stopping."
In Windows I need to be able to map to a shared folder on the FC3 server. I tried setting up Samba and NFS shares on the FC3 server, but still no luck.
Any ideas why the 2003 server is having so much trouble, why it can't get a browse list from the FC2 server?? Did Microsoft purposely break communication between Windows 2003 and Linux?

By the way, I can ping and nslookup any and all computers on the network, including the FC servers, from the 2003 server.

Thanks for the help!

Some questions you can answer to solve your problem :
+ Do you have samba installed on the FC2 server?
+ Do the windows servers and the fc2 are in the same workgroup?
+ What about the FC2 Server firewall? Is it allowing samba connections?

Do connect, the URL should be :
\\ipadressOfFc2Server\Fc2SharedDirectory

The fc2 shared directory name is case sensitive.

I would also check on the 2003 server that smb signing is turned off. It is turned on and set to "required" by default in 2003 server. Check in your local security policy if it's a standalone/member server or if it's a DC, check the default domain controllers policy

to answer mrcheeks:
I have samba installed and running, I am using samba shares from the windows xp clients on the network.
All the computers are members of the same domain.
The FC2 firewall is letting smb connections through.

No luck on connecting with the IP address.

granny:
I checked the local security policy. Under Local Security Settings, I went to Local Policies > Security Options and enabled "Microsoft network client: Send unencrypted password to thirdy-party SMB servers". I'm not sure if that is the option you were talking about. If not, where do I go to turn off smb signing?

Thanks for the help!

any of the Microsoft network client settings that say anything about digitally signing, turn them off.

Ok, I tried that but still no luck. I am at a complete loss with this one. I know microsoft doesn't work well with other OSes, but seriously this is ridiculous. Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

Samba as a master browser will create a problem with win 2003 if no domain controller is there...
You can try the following option...
try and have in ur samba
'wins support = yes'

and do not have bothe win2K and Samba in the same workgroup... keep them seperate

I do actually have an NT 4 domain controller on the network, so I just disabled samba as the master browser and set wins support to yes as you suggested. That seemed to fix the network browsing problem on win 2003, but I still can't access the network shares on either of the fedora servers. When I try to browse to one of the fedora servers I get the error: "\\server is not accessible. You may not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the Administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. The request is not supported." I obviously should have permission to access the server, so what could that be. As I mentioned before I have samba and NFS shares set up on the fedora servers but win 2003 won't see them. I do have the win 2003 user set up as a samba user.
I also tried net use to map a drive to the network share. "net use S: \\server\share" resulted in the drive being mapped, but when I tried to open the mapped drive I got an error "s:\ is not accessible. the request is not supported."
Any ideas?

Thanks for the help.

try to look into the logs....
smbd.log and nmbd.log located at /var/log/samba
see what these logs register at the moment you try to browse your FC2 Server..
and post your conf file...

I have been having the same problem for MONTHS now. Today I finally tracked down a solution that is working for me. Hopefully this will help you too.

Go to Security Settings. I have changed the "Network security: LAN Manager authentication level"
from (default): "Send NTLM response only"
to: "Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated"

This allowed me to browse and then access my network Samba server.


Network security: LAN Manager authentication level Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated