Samba hassle with name lookup

I'm a Samba newbie trying to set-up a rudimentary test system with a
Redhat samba server and a WinXP laptop. As much as I've worked
throught the troubleshooting guide and setup info in the Samba HOWTO,
I'm not winning and would appreciate people's insights.

I'll describe my setup first, then my symptoms along with what I've
found when I've tried to dig deeper.

Setup
=====

The Redhat and the WinXP boxes are communicating via a wireless
router, with the Redhat having a physical connection to the router and
the WinXP having a wireless connection via WEP. Firewalls are
disabled. DHCP is the order of the day.

The Redhat's smb.conf is
[global]
workgroup = s4b
netbios name = s4bServer
security = SHARE
hosts allow = 192.168.0. 127.
[share1]
path = /shareds4b
comment = testfiles
read only = Yes
guest ok = Yes
guest only = Yes
/shareds4b exists and has 0777 permissions.
The Redhat's IP is 192.168.0.132.

The WinXP is configured with workgroup s4b.
Its IP is 192.168.0.122. Its name is ‘S4B-2-TOSHIBA'

The router has IP 192.168.0.1.

Symptoms
========
The units can ‘see' each other when I use IP addresses, but names are
not working.

On the Redhat box
-----------------
I eventually got `smbclient –L s4bServer` to work by explicitly
putting s4bserver in my /etc/hosts, so it works now (although I had
thought I wouldn't need to put an entry in /etc/hosts - is this
suspect?).

BUT smclient doesn't list the WinXP box under the SERVER heading
(although I can ping the WinXP box by IP address)

Doing `nmblookup –B S4B-2-TOSHIBA '*'` fails to print the laptop's ip
address.
Doing `nmblookup –B 192.168.0.122 '*'` fails, saying "name_query
failed to find name *".

On the WinXP laptop
-------------------
s4bServer isn't appearing in My Network Places. If I try to add it
explicitly via Add a Network Place, s4bServer is indeed being listed
by name under the s4b workgroup (that's one good thing!), but no share
folders are being listed under it.

Doing `net use e: \\s4bServer\share1` complains "The network name
cannot be found".


If I run ethereal on the Redhat box and do a ping s4bServer on the
WinXP box, ethereal shows that the Redhat is indeed picking-up the
NetBIOS NBNS broadcast message, but is responding with ICMP Type 3
Code 10 ("Host administratively prohibited").


OK, I can see that there's some sort of name lookup problem going on
here; but I'm surprised by the ICMP response, since I thought that
nmbd's purpose in life was to respond correctly to these messages.
What have I missed?


Angus Monro
s4b Pty Ltd

Method House for R.A.A.D (Risk Avoidance Architectures Design)
Solution Architects, System and Software Designers, Business
Specialist

(m) +61 421 454 671
(p) +61 3 9909 7358
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Gus wrote:
> I'm a Samba newbie trying to set-up a rudimentary test system with a
> Redhat samba server and a WinXP laptop. As much as I've worked
> throught the troubleshooting guide and setup info in the Samba HOWTO,
> I'm not winning and would appreciate people's insights.
>
> I'll describe my setup first, then my symptoms along with what I've
> found when I've tried to dig deeper.
[snip]

Too late to go over your setup in detail.

Confirm that basic networking works without a hitch, ie., without
Samba.

Confirm that machines can ping each other _both_ by IP and Name.
You're not running a local dns server (nor should you) so you need to
place names in /etc/hosts on Linux and in HOSTS and LMHOSTS (c:\?\?) on
Windows.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;142309
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q105997/
http://www.google.com/search?num=50&...ts&btnG=Search

Double check that _user_accounts_ are set up properly on both machines
(well, Linux for sure).

I don't find the Samba docs an exemplar of clarity (or good humor), so
I recommend that you try Using Samba, 2nd Edition to get oriented and
set up.
Get it and all the Samba docs here:
http://samba.org/~samba-bugs/docs/sa...latest.tar.bz2
or just the book here:
http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/using_samba/toc.html
or here:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba2/book/toc.html

This may (or may not) prove of use:
http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/linux-hn/samba.htm

I'll check over your post in detail next AM for any glitches.
till then hth,
prg
email above disabled