I'm very sure this is a bug because nobody could help me (even not on the samba mailing list) and configuration is 100% correct. Problem: Neither WINS nore NetBIOS do browsing. Network neighbourhood on Windows XP stays empty and lots of tools I will describe later also reports empty browse lists. I only have a test environment with the samba server (3.0.22 - newest version) and a vanilly WindowsXP professional. First, I used the deb-packages from www.samba.org but for locating the error I built a new vanilla samba from source and installed it to /samba. First, I also had the XP computer in a domain (as PDC) but now I noticed, that it has nothing to do with PDC. As soon as samba is local/master browser, the network neighbourhood is empty. When I turn off browsing on samba server (os level=0, preferred master=no, domain master=no, local master=no) everything works OK. The smb.conf looks like (only global section): [global] panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d interfaces = 192.168.200.121/255.255.255.0 socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_THROUGHPUT SO_KEEPALIVE SO_SNDBUF=18384 SO_RCVBUF=16384 netbios name = nobaq workgroup = HAMMLER server string = Samba server passdb backend = tdbsam os level = 128 preferred master = no yes domain master = yes local master = yes security = user encrypt passwords = true domain logons = yes logon path = \\%L\profile logon drive = U: logon home = \\%N\%U logon script = logon.cmd map to guest = never guest account = nobody map to guest = Bad User ;username map = /etc/samba/users.map unix password sync = yes passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u passwd chat = Enter*new*UNIX*password: %n\n \nRetype*new*UNIX*password: %n\n \npasswd:*password*updated*successfully* time server = yes wins support = yes ;dns proxy = yes name resolve order = lmhosts wins bcast host printing = cups printcap name = cups load printers = yes preserve case = yes dos charset = CP850 create mask = 600 directory mask = 700 short preserve case = yes unix charset = ISO8859-1 add machine script = /usr/bin/sudo /etc/samba/scripts/machineadd.sh %u add group script = /etc/samba/scripts/groupadd.sh "%g" delete group script = /usr/sbin/groupdel "%g" add user to group script = /usr/sbin/adduser "%u" "%g" delete user from group script = /usr/sbin/deluser "%u" "%g" delete user script = /usr/sbin/deluser --remove-home "%u" log level = 99 ; log file = /var/log/samba/smb%m.log log file = /var/log/samba/SMB.log max log size = 50000 Contents of wins.dat: VERSION 1 0 "HAMMLER#00" 1145050326 255.255.255.255 e4R "HAMMLER#1b" 1145049185 192.168.200.121 64R "HAMMLER#1c" 1145049185 192.168.200.121 e4R "HAMMLER#1e" 1145050326 255.255.255.255 e4R "NOBAQ#00" 1145050326 192.168.200.121 66R "NOBAQ#03" 1145050326 192.168.200.121 66R "NOBAQ#20" 1145050326 192.168.200.121 66R "STYLISTIC#00" 1145090244 192.168.200.201 64R "STYLISTIC#20" 1145090245 192.168.200.201 64R Contents of browse.dat: "HAMMLER" c0001000 "STYLISTIC" "HAMMLER" "NOBAQ" 40099b2b "NOBAQ Server" "HAMMLER" "STYLISTIC" 40051003 "NikiMobile" "HAMMLER" smbclient on the same machine: root@nobaq:~ # smbclient -L //NOBAQ -U % Domain=[HAMMLER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.22] Sharename Type Comment --------- ---- ------- webspace Disk Eigene Webdateien web-publish Printer PDF auf Homepage veroeffentlichen cdrom Disk CD-Rom zip Disk ZIP-Drive daten Disk Daten donkey Disk MLdonkey pub Disk Oeffentlicher Datenaustausch media Disk MEDIA IPC$ IPC IPC Service (NOBAQ Server) ADMIN$ IPC IPC Service (NOBAQ Server) Domain=[HAMMLER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.0.22] Server Comment --------- ------- Workgroup Master --------- ------- also doesn't list any servers or workgroups although it should! Windows XP is configured to use the SAMBA wins. Again: There are only two computers left in the network, I tried with/without domain, many options etc. At the point of writing, the WindowsXP computer is not member of the domain but both are in the workgroup 'HAMMLER'. But I get the same results when the XP computer is domain member. net view on the windows machine: C:\>net view Es sind keine Einträge in der Liste. browstat on windows machine: C:\>browstat status Status for domain HAMMLER on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{CFE1851D-F469-482D-8 682-2137FEF1FF3E} Browsing is active on domain. Master browser name is: NOBAQ Unable to determine build of browser master: 2 \\\\NOBAQ . Version:04.09 Flags: 9a2b NT CONTROLLER SERVER 1 backup servers retrieved from master NOBAQ \\NOBAQ There are 0 servers in domain HAMMLER on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{CFE1 851D-F469-482D-8682-2137FEF1FF3E} There are 0 domains in domain HAMMLER on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{CFE1 851D-F469-482D-8682-2137FEF1FF3E} As you can see, 0 servers and 0 domains C:\>browstat VIEW \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{CFE1851D-F469-482D-8682-2137FEF1FF3E} Remoting NetServerEnum to \\NOBAQ on transport \Device\NetBT_Tcpip_{CFE1851D-F46 9-482D-8682-2137FEF1FF3E} with flags ffffffff 0 entries returned. 0 total. 10 milliseconds And all nbtstat output on the windows machine (nobaq is the samba server, 192.168.200.121 is the IP of the samba server) C:\>nbtstat -a nobaq LAN-Verbindung: Knoten-IP-Adresse: [192.168.200.201] Bereichskennung: [] NetBIOS-Namentabelle des Remotecomputers Name Typ Status --------------------------------------------- NOBAQ <00> EINDEUTIG Registriert NOBAQ <03> EINDEUTIG Registriert NOBAQ <20> EINDEUTIG Registriert ..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GRUPPE Registriert HAMMLER <00> GRUPPE Registriert HAMMLER <1B> EINDEUTIG Registriert HAMMLER <1C> GRUPPE Registriert HAMMLER <1D> EINDEUTIG Registriert HAMMLER <1E> GRUPPE Registriert MAC Adresse = 00-00-00-00-00-00 C:\>nbtstat -A 192.168.200.121 LAN-Verbindung: Knoten-IP-Adresse: [192.168.200.201] Bereichskennung: [] NetBIOS-Namentabelle des Remotecomputers Name Typ Status --------------------------------------------- NOBAQ <00> EINDEUTIG Registriert NOBAQ <03> EINDEUTIG Registriert NOBAQ <20> EINDEUTIG Registriert ..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GRUPPE Registriert HAMMLER <00> GRUPPE Registriert HAMMLER <1B> EINDEUTIG Registriert HAMMLER <1C> GRUPPE Registriert HAMMLER <1D> EINDEUTIG Registriert HAMMLER <1E> GRUPPE Registriert MAC Adresse = 00-00-00-00-00-00 C:\>nbtstat -c LAN-Verbindung: Knoten-IP-Adresse: [192.168.200.201] Bereichskennung: [] NetBIOS-Remotecache-Namentabelle Name Typ Hostadresse Dauer [Sek.] ------------------------------------------------------------- HAMMLER <1D> EINDEUTIG 192.168.200.121 375 HAMMLER <1B> EINDEUTIG 192.168.200.121 350 NOBAQ <00> EINDEUTIG 192.168.200.121 545 NOBAQ <20> EINDEUTIG 192.168.200.121 450 C:\>nbtstat -n LAN-Verbindung: Knoten-IP-Adresse: [192.168.200.201] Bereichskennung: [] Lokale NetBIOS-Namentabelle Name Typ Status --------------------------------------------- STYLISTIC <00> EINDEUTIG Registriert HAMMLER <00> GRUPPE Registriert STYLISTIC <20> EINDEUTIG Registriert HAMMLER <1E> GRUPPE Registriert Although I run samba with loglevel of 99 and look *very* carefully through the logs, I can't see any irregulareness. Another debugging try was capturing packets with Ethereal. I think the packets I'm interested in are NetServerEnum2 packets (aren't they?). There are lots of NetServerEnum2 requests (Domain enum; Workstation, Server, ...) and *every* NetServerEnum2 response has the attributes "Entry count: 0" and "Available entries: 0". I do hope that you are able to fix the error as browsing is an important feature of samba. I'd be very happy to provide you with more information (ethereal dumps, logs, outputs, ...). E-Mail is included in the bug report. Best regards, Nikolaus Hammler
the problem description is too vague to make something out of it. This netbios based browsing mechanism is also dying or dead already. See Web Service Discovery daemong (https://github.com/christgau/wsdd) for a mondern alternative.