[KLUG Members] Nautilus smb: - was Two questions.

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

Bruce Smith wrote:
> Does the fact I'm running a private class "B" cause it to
> take longer than if I were running a private class "C"?
> (does it scan all possible nodes?)

Nope.  I actually don't know any protocol that scans all IPs.  Unless,
of course, you have _that_ big of a network and are actually using many
of those IPs!

Novell and Windows Networking use broadcast discovery.  Each node
periodically sends out broadcasts saying "I'm here."  You then capture
all those broadcasts and organize a "browse list."  More recent versions
of Windows use a local browse "master" setup where one machine says it's
the "master."  You can also use WINS to keep track of the lists across
subnets, where broadcast doesn't work.

I call this type of networking "me too" networking.  No UNIX service I
know of uses it.  That's why information on a UNIX network is not so
"instantly available."

> That may be a problem.  At work we are primarily a *nix shop.
> My main "NT Server" is Samba running on HPUX (old ver of Samba).
> We have a bunch of Windows 9x clients, one small 5 client NT4 server
> running on a P5-120 32MB for payroll (because our payroll service
> REQUIRES NT and won't support us otherwise), and one Citrix Winframe
> box.  But I don't have anything setup to be a PDC (or BDC).  We're
> just one big happy "workgroup" and a bunch of *nix & Xterminals.

Good move.  You can actually put a Samba 2.2 server "in charge."  I
would _at_least_ make your Samba server (and 2.0/2.2 version) the WINS
Server and have all systems, both Windows and Linux, point to it.

> Can I "join" a workgroup?

Actually, Samba doesn't differentiate between workgroups and domains. 
They are basically the same.  Windows uses the terminology to
differentiate between a few key attributes that translate to a couple
different options.  Actually, this is where Samba is most flexible --
tying together existing, non-domain NT networks.

You can use Samba in a "domain-like" mode for browse lists -- so you can
scan all Windows systems across your multiple subnets, but still do
authorization on each local server or subnet.  NT won't allow you to do
that.

> Or would anything else help my speed given this setup?

WINS.  Setup one of your Samba servers to be a WINS server, and point
all your Windows systems at it.  Also setup your UNIX Samba clients to
point at it too.  If you read my Chapter 33 in "Samba Unleashed," I talk
about all this.  Although it is driven towards multiple subnets, much of
it is still very applicable to single subnets.  I would have written
more, but the chapter was a 3-day weekend "rush job" because another
contributing author "flaked out."

> Just for my own curiosity, how would I "join a NT domain"
> with this Nautilus browser?  Is that part of the smb.conf?

It's actually a command you have to run.  NT/2000/XP has a lot of "false
security" crap in its use of what is known as a "security identifier"
(SID).  You have to create an SID, and tell the NT domain what it is.

But you're not running an NT server as a PDC/SDC, so that's not an
issue.  The options are endless when it comes to Samba, but enabling
WINS on one of your Samba boxen and pointing every other box to it would
probably improve browsing speed -- and performance in general (as the
number of broadcasts -- remember, "me too" networking ;-> -- are cut
down).

Maybe we should re-look at all your systems and what services they need
to provide.  BTW, what are you using for UNIX directory services, NIS?

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org   chat:thebs413
Engineer  AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc.  http://www.linux-wlan.org
President    SmithConcepts, Inc.    http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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