Topic: Will SME Server help my situation?

[jimdaug]

Hi all,

The situation is
1 PC Dual boot XP 64/Windows 7
1 PC WinXP pro sp3
1 Apple MacBook Pro Laptop OSX Snow Leopard
1 Buffalo Linkstation NAS
1 DLink DIR-655

The DLink Dir-655 is a Router/Gateway/Firewall and is giving the computers and a few game consoles and the TV service local IP addresses from DHCP. 

The problem is on any given day, the Windows Computers might or might not show up on the Mac as available shares, The single boot XP computer can't see any of the other computers, and the NAS will only show up on my Mac if I'm booted into XP on the dual boot.

From my research, it seems to be a matter of NetBios and WINS and DNS name resolution and all of the computers fighting to be the Master Browser.  Every once in a while, it will all work like it's supposed to, and it's nice when it does, but I can't ever figure out what causes the computers to be visible/not visible. Especially when I haven't changed anything.

I think what I need is a server that can sort all of that out instead of the computers trying to sort it out amongst themselves.

I've read through most of the SME Manuals and I'm not sure if SME would work or not. I think have pretty much determined what I need and don't need. I just don't know enough about networking and servers to be sure. I'm hoping someone can give me a definite answer.

I need                         
-Name resolution on the network so that I can get the computers seeing each other (NetBios, WINS or DNS?)
-A Master browser that passes the IPs and Host Names to each of the computers

I don't need                         
-DHCP, the router does it (actually I don't care if the router does it or the server)
-File server (I'm happy with each computer keeping it's own files, I just need to transfer some of them every now and then)
-email, ftp, user accounts, apache, sql, RAID

Is this kind of setup possible?  I guess essentially what the network needs is a traffic cop or a Nanny to smooth out the problems of the computers not seeing each other on the network.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

James

[cactus]

I think you seem to confuse Master Browser with DNS. DNS is the service that maps host names to IP addresses. The master browser settings have to do with samba and nothing with DNS and name resolution. Most likely you DLink router is doing that.

I think you should be able to resolve your issues by setting your limited stations all to a fixed IP and then access them by IP address instead of hostname IMHO, no extra hardware and no addition.

If the requirements are as above, then SME Server is serious overkill.

[jimdaug]

Fair enough, I'm just frustrated.

I changed the Workgroup name on everything to one that hadn't been used before and it improved the situation. The only thing now is that the single XP system doesn't see anything in the Network Places. But who knows that may resolve itself in a day or so.

The Peer-to-Peer/Zero Config networking is nice until it doesn't work and then it seems like nothing I do works.  I was hoping for a solution that would give me a little more control, but you're probably right about it being overkill.

Thanks

[brianr]

I've got a couple of thoughts for you:

1. An SMEServer would certainly help if you ran it as a domain controller, and logged your Windows systems into it, however as has been said before, it is serious overkill just to fix a Windows networking problem.

2.  There used to be registry hacks to control what sort of "status" Windows system presented themselves in the network browse competition.  You could look that up and nominate just one as the master browser, and set the others to lowly status.

YMMV.

[jimdaug]

Right Right

It'd probably be too much effort and head banging on the wall for what benefit I'd get.

As for #2 I found you can turn the computer browsing off through services.  Before I changed the workgroup name I had turned it off in windows 7, and nmblookup on the Mac was listing the XP machine as Master Browser, but it still wasn't working. Apparently there's something in XP that doesn't clear if you change the workgroup name back to one that's been used already (which I had done).  Any way, After changing the workgroup name to something completely new on all the machines nmblookup was listing the laptop as Master Browser. Then finally the XP machine after the laptop was off overnight.  It's doing fine right now, the shares are visible on the Mac, and The Windows 7 machine can see all of them. I think as long as the Windows7 machine isn't Master browser I'll be ok.  I just wish it was a little more predictable. Or at least to where you can explicitly declare a master browser without having to turn it off on all the others. Oh well.

Thanks for the advice guys.

-James

[janet]

jimdaug

Search these forums on browsemaster for a lot of useful info.