Very Computer

Hi all,

My Network Neighborhood often displays all compters in my LAN correctly
(3x W98, 1x Linux) but every now and then looses sight of some or all
computers , while Find Computer in most cases is able to retrieve. The
problem occured under W95 and reappeared after a fresh W98 installation.
Sometimes I get Network Inaccessible errors. Could this be a hardware
problem?

cross posting: comp.os.linux.networking and
comp.os.ms-windows.networking

Thanks for any suggestions,

Peter Bootsma

Quote:>Could this be a hardware
> problem?

No, it sounds like the classic browsing problem that occurs in Microsoft
style networks, expecially if machines are rebooted frequently.  One of the
systems on your network automatically designates itself as the "browse
master" and maintains a list of the servers on your network.  That list is
what show's up in your network neighborhood.  If the "browse master" is
rebooted for whatever reason, a new master browser gets selected but may not
have the complete list for a while.

Find Computer doesn't rely on the browse list - its sends a message to the
computer name you specify and waits for a response.  As long as your client
can come up with an IP address to use (via WINS/NBNS, lmhosts file, or
broadcast) it will be able to see the specified computer.

If you disable the browse master function on most of your computers (via the
control panel (Win9x), registry (NT), or the smb.conf file (Samba) you will
probably see more consistent results.

-
Brian Schwarz

Quote:> Hi all,

> My Network Neighborhood often displays all compters in my LAN correctly
> (3x W98, 1x Linux) but every now and then looses sight of some or all
> computers , while Find Computer in most cases is able to retrieve. The
> problem occured under W95 and reappeared after a fresh W98 installation.
> Sometimes I get Network Inaccessible errors. Could this be a hardware
> problem?

You can also configure your Samba server as a wins server (very easy,
just modify the smb.conf line) and then configure your Windows computers
to use the samba server as a wins server.

Regards,

David Flory

Quote:

> Hi all,

> My Network Neighborhood often displays all compters in my LAN correctly
> (3x W98, 1x Linux) but every now and then looses sight of some or all
> computers , while Find Computer in most cases is able to retrieve. The
> problem occured under W95 and reappeared after a fresh W98 installation.
> Sometimes I get Network Inaccessible errors. Could this be a hardware
> problem?

> cross posting: comp.os.linux.networking and
> comp.os.ms-windows.networking

> Thanks for any suggestions,

> Peter Bootsma

Thanks for helping Brian, it seems to work OK now.

Peter Bootsma & Miekel van der Zande