S2003 poor netbios resolution

Server 2003 R2, installed about a week ago, some clients won't be domain
members and hence will rely on netbios resolution.

Anyway, since installing the AD, netbios name resolution has been sluggish.
It was 100% reliable beforehand.

Symptoms are that some machines (why only some I don''t know) cannot browse
the LAN or connect to shares at startup. This can be resolved by pinging the
DC's IP address, which brings the connection to life. Not a question of
waiting either- no ping, no name resolution.

Until you ping the DC's IP address, you cannot ping the DC either by netbios
or DNS name. Once you ping it by IP, then you can do the former.

The DC is set to be the browse master.

The DNS side of things is fine, and one resolution (yet to be tried) is to
put the clients onto using the DC's DNS service as a resolver of internal
names. I may just do that and see if it improves matters. But, the problem
shouldn't be there anyway.

Just wondered if anyone could shed any light? A policy that stops netbios
announcements, perhaps?

Do you have WINS server? Or use browstat to troubleshoot it.

--
Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on
http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on
http://www.HowToNetworking.com
"Anteaus" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:2106F968-825A-476C-9AF7-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Server 2003 R2, installed about a week ago, some clients won't be domain
> members and hence will rely on netbios resolution.
>
> Anyway, since installing the AD, netbios name resolution has been
> sluggish.
> It was 100% reliable beforehand.
>
> Symptoms are that some machines (why only some I don''t know) cannot
> browse
> the LAN or connect to shares at startup. This can be resolved by pinging
> the
> DC's IP address, which brings the connection to life. Not a question of
> waiting either- no ping, no name resolution.
>
> Until you ping the DC's IP address, you cannot ping the DC either by
> netbios
> or DNS name. Once you ping it by IP, then you can do the former.
>
> The DC is set to be the browse master.
>
> The DNS side of things is fine, and one resolution (yet to be tried) is to
> put the clients onto using the DC's DNS service as a resolver of internal
> names. I may just do that and see if it improves matters. But, the problem
> shouldn't be there anyway.
>
> Just wondered if anyone could shed any light? A policy that stops netbios
> announcements, perhaps?

"Robert L. (MS-MVP)" wrote:

> Do you have WINS server? Or use browstat to troubleshoot it.
>
No. Though one could be started, I guess.

I've since discovered that a virtual machine (vmware, XP Pro) running on the
DC is poisoning the DNS cache. It's registering itself in DNS, but under the
_DC's_ IP address instead of its own, creating a second A-record for the DC.
(Never thought to look for a bogus PTR, but might be there too) In principle
this shouldn't cause the problem I have, but it might be relevant. The same
VM is trying to assert itself as a browse master, which is strange as it's
not a server OS and therefore shouldn't contest the DC for this role.

On further inspection the issue seems to be that those computers which are
having issues regard themselves as Master Browsers, and will not relinquish
this role even if an election is forced. Why I'm not sure.

"Anteaus" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:C6621E16-A55A-4E8A-ACED-(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Robert L. (MS-MVP)" wrote:
>
>> Do you have WINS server? Or use browstat to troubleshoot it.
>>
> No. Though one could be started, I guess.
>
> I've since discovered that a virtual machine (vmware, XP Pro) running on
> the
> DC is poisoning the DNS cache. It's registering itself in DNS, but under
> the
> _DC's_ IP address instead of its own, creating a second A-record for the
> DC.
> (Never thought to look for a bogus PTR, but might be there too) In
> principle
> this shouldn't cause the problem I have, but it might be relevant. The
> same
> VM is trying to assert itself as a browse master, which is strange as it's
> not a server OS and therefore shouldn't contest the DC for this role.
>
> On further inspection the issue seems to be that those computers which are
> having issues regard themselves as Master Browsers, and will not
> relinquish
> this role even if an election is forced. Why I'm not sure.
>
>

Browsing can be a problem, especially if you have any multihomed
servers. I can't see how a vm would register the host's IP address in DNS,
but I don't use vmware (and I don't run vms on a DC).

Why do you think that non-domain members need to rely on Netbios names
for rsolution? There is no reason why you cannot set a DNS suffix on a
non-domain member so that it can resolve names through DNS using just the
server name. It is a common practice with remote users who are not domain
members.

Actually there is no need for browsing, just to connect to the server by name.

I'm going to change them to using the DNS server, anyway. That seems to be a
workable resolution provided they have a fallback DNS entry for when not
connected.

Thanks for comments.

> Browsing can be a problem, especially if you have any multihomed
> servers. I can't see how a vm would register the host's IP address in DNS,
> but I don't use vmware (and I don't run vms on a DC).
>