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Network Browsing revisited

Bob Finch

Network Browsing revisited
« on: July 31, 2000, 11:41:08 AM »
I SEEM to have found a fix to the Network Browsing problems I mentioned a
few days ago. It seems that to get half-way decent browsing from inside
of Network Neighborhood, Win98se clients should have the Quick Logon
enabled. The logon and restoring connections during boot up option SEEMS
to be the cause of the problem. I KNOW this doesn't make alot of sense,
but then again this IS Windose !

(The testing I did was NOT very exhaustive, so there maybe more to this yet.
But I HOPE not. GRIN)

Please refer to the Network Browsing thread I started last week for details.

Bob Finch

P.s. Yes, I KNOW that using dhcp serving and pdc from the e-smith side would
probably help alot, but I am trying to also have connectivity without
needing any particular server to be up and running.

Bob

RE: Network Browsing revisited
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2000, 09:35:37 PM »
The "Quick Logon" setting only affects when the client authenticates persistent connections: at bootup when there's a ton of stuff going on vs. first access of the drive, when your machine's probably not quite so busy. This *shouldn't* affect browsing, but like you said, this is Windows we're talking about... ;p

If you do *not* have a WINS server on your network for name resolution, the other methods are: lmhosts lookup or broadcast. lmhosts lookups can be used, but the lmhosts file must be maintained manually on each machine.  This may be doable for a small network, but as your network grows, it very quickly becomes unmanagable.  Your machines can also perform name resolution via broadcast, but it cannot resolve across networks and is very inefficient (when booting a machine, it can take 5-10 minutes or more before you are able to properly browse your network - sound familiar? If you want to understand what's going on behind the scenes WRT what you're trying to do, take a look at the Browsing and Browsing-Config files in the docs area of any of the Samba mirrors... some of it's kinda dry, but it'll give you an idea of the process involved).

The easiest way to take care of all this is to have a server in place to take care of DHCP/WINS in addition to file sharing. One other thing you might want to consider is how to devise a backup and recovery plan for a peer network with critical data files over multiple machines and directories (not trying to poke fun of you, I've been there ;) If you go on the assumption that this server will be up 24/7, you can provide connectivity and browsing regardless of which clients are up or down and with just one point of failure (as opposed to many, many peer machines), you can put UPS/tape backup/recovery procedures in place for a couple hundred $$ (or less, if you are good at scavanging).

Good Luck!

Bob

Bob Finch

RE: Network Browsing revisited
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2000, 01:22:45 AM »
These are all good points Bob and well worth considering. A couple of comments thou;

The network here is just 'automatic browse' and NOW 'quick logon'. It also is (hard) 'static'
coded for IP addressing.

I did this because it represented NO single point of failure and IS small enough for lmhost files.
It doesn't take the five minutes to browse the network IF I look at remote shares through
"My Computer" first, and most of the time it is only a couple of minutes through 'Network
Neighborhood if I don't. The My Computer (or any specific link - like a shortcut on the desktop
to a share, ) route will work immediately. And then the network neighborhood route is there.

About the back-up, have you looked at 'mondo-rescue' ? This looks to be a VERY interesting
back-up idea for a small network.

Where are ytou getting your inexpensive back-up tape drives?

Thanxs for all the input this past week. You write very clearly.

Bob Finch

Gerald

RE: Network access denied
« Reply #3 on: August 01, 2000, 09:14:09 PM »
I have turned quick logon on, rechecked all the passwords. e-smith in handling the DHCP, Logon to Windows NT domain is checked. The domain name "jmshome" has been verified, DHCP is being used for WINS resolution. I am still not able to gain access to files on the e-smith server. Any ideas?

Gerald

Situation worse
« Reply #4 on: August 02, 2000, 03:56:12 AM »
I have made every "tweak" that I can imagine and nothing seem to work. I an nolonger able to gain access to the "primary" file though the W2K pro Workstation. It just doesn't see the e-smith server as a domain controller. When I log onto the W98 2nd Edtion WS I get "No domain server was available to validate your password. You may not be able to gain access to some network resources."  After logon if I attempt to access any folder below the "Data level" the following appears "\HOMESERVERPrimaryfilesdataCorrespondence is not accessible"
"Access is denied"
I am running e-smith in a "server only" mode with no internet access. the server has two NICs of when a cable modem becomes available. Any ideas would be appreciated. I have tried everything in the above emails.  TIA :-))

Bob Finch

RE: Situation worse
« Reply #5 on: August 02, 2000, 07:47:58 AM »
I typically try and isolate nodes in situations like this. In your situation I would give the Windoze
machines hard coded IP addresses, take the e-smith server off the local network, and see
if you can share between the two remaining machines. Add the machine's info to your lmhost files
on the remaining machines if neccessary. If this still doesn't work then your problems are
Windows based.

Hope this methodology will help you get things up and running. Reverse the above process
until the network sharing and/ or browsing is broken again and that should help you
pinpoint the problem and hopefully it's solution.

Bob Finch

Gerald

Situation same not Windows
« Reply #6 on: August 02, 2000, 08:48:30 PM »
I setup the W2K and W98 2nd Ed. WSs with static IPs 192.168.1.5 & 192.168.1.6 setup a shared drive and printer on the W2K WS it worked fine. Then brought the e-smith server back on line. Same problem users on either WS were denied access and the an error message was given at logon that no PDN was available for authenication. Now, this was a working e-smith 3.1 network that hadn't been reset for months. It worked perfectly. I did a "new install" with e-smith 4.0 and the problem immediately presented itself. The only thing I can think of is. I did a copy of folders from the old e-smith server to the W2K system for a back up because the e-smith backup didn't seem to work  properly. Now, is it possible that a flag bit of some kind was set on the W2K system when the files were present there? I don't think so because I can access the folders and files from either WS as long as I logon as "admin" with the e-smith system password. Any further ideas?

Bob Finch

RE: Situation same not Windows
« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2000, 06:37:11 PM »
Umm....try using lmhost files on your windows workstations so that windoze doesn't require a pdc
(not sure what pdn means in your message, i am assuming it to mean pdc-primary domain controller).
If you are using lmhosts on a w98 machine then an automatic browse master setting should be ignored.
Atleast that is what it does here. (BTW - make sure you are properly upgraded to w98second edition,
there are numerous bug fixes.)

If you are using lmhost files, then I would start looking for problems with w2k. For this you will need
someone elses help as I have not played with it yet. To tell the truth I was waiting for one or two
service releases before I would play with it. (G)

Finally try to re-install e-smith. Back up your config files to the W98 machine. Test it both with and without
restoring the config files.

Bob Finch