How to specify master browser with DHCP

Hi!

Is it possible to specify the netbios master browser in the the dhcpd.conf,
so that Windows and/or Linux clients use this value for looking up the
browse list?

Arne

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Arne Schmitz

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 10:07:28 +0200, Arne Schmitz wrote:

> Is it possible to specify the netbios master browser in the the dhcpd.conf,
> so that Windows and/or Linux clients use this value for looking up the
> browse list?
>
My understanding is that if a master browser exists on your LAN, other
machines would already be able to find it without requiring assistance
from dchp config files.
Or, to put it another way: how would machines on a fixed-IP system find
the master browser?

B.
--
Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.

Brian schrieb:

> On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 10:07:28 +0200, Arne Schmitz wrote:
>
>> Is it possible to specify the netbios master browser in the the
>> dhcpd.conf, so that Windows and/or Linux clients use this value for
>> looking up the browse list?
>>
> My understanding is that if a master browser exists on your LAN, other
> machines would already be able to find it without requiring assistance
> from dchp config files.
> Or, to put it another way: how would machines on a fixed-IP system find
> the master browser?

Well, I do not really know, but I just read this article (in German):

http://www.wintotal.de/Tipps/Eintrag...D=570&URBID=14

And it says one can specify the Master Browser in Windows XP manually. So I
thought maybe I can do it for my dhcpd to deliver this setting to the
clients...

Arne

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On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 18:11:27 +0200, Arne Schmitz wrote:

> And it says one can specify the Master Browser in Windows XP manually. So I
> thought maybe I can do it for my dhcpd to deliver this setting to the
> clients...

You should be able to (though i haven't used XP, and i'm not running this
ATM ...), but when useing Samba as the PDC for a single NetBIOS domain.


/etc/samba/smb.conf:

# Master Browser
preferred master = yes
local master = yes
# NetBIOS name service server
wins support = yes
# Yes or no to make a lot of broadcast noise
lm announce = yes


And in /etc/dhcpd.conf:

# NetBIOS Name Service server
option netbios-name-servers 192.168.0.10;
# NetBIOS Datagram Distribution server
option netbios-dd-server 192.168.0.10;
# 8 - H-Node: Hybrid - try WINS, then Broadcast
# 2 - P-Node: Peer - WINS only
option netbios-node-type 8;
# In an example this was set to an empty string
option netbios-scope "";

--
-Menno.

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 18:11:27 +0200, Arne Schmitz wrote:

[snips]
> And it says one can specify the Master Browser in Windows XP manually.
> So I thought maybe I can do it for my dhcpd to deliver this setting to
> the clients...
>
If you have a machine acting full time as a server (and especially if it's
Linux-based & running samba), then make this machine the master browser.
Then, no-one needs to be told anything much.

What the article you quoted refers to is the election which takes place as
Windows-based machines start up and once that's sorted out, all the other
boxes busily exchange information with whatever box won the election just
now as the master browser. A kind-of "chase me" DNS replacement, and a
miserable little noisy mess it is too.
Until this game is completed browse lists aren't accurate, and of course
it all takes time to complete. Actually I don't think they're *ever*
accurate but that's another story.

But if you already have a server "promoted" so it's permanently the master
browser this delay is avoided because the election "called" by the machine
being powered up is always immediately "won" by the master browser, and
the newly-powered machine is just added to the browse list immediately.


B.
--
Microsoft? That's some kind of toilet paper, right?

Menno Duursma schrieb:

> On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 18:11:27 +0200, Arne Schmitz wrote:
>
>> And it says one can specify the Master Browser in Windows XP manually. So
>> I thought maybe I can do it for my dhcpd to deliver this setting to the
>> clients...
>
> You should be able to (though i haven't used XP, and i'm not running this
> ATM ...), but when useing Samba as the PDC for a single NetBIOS domain.
> [...]

Thanks a lot. That's what I was looking for.

Arne

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