The samba server is the master in a small network and it curiously gets its server name (as defined in smb.conf) appended to the end of its unix hostname in windows network browsers. Needless to say, this results in invalid network path errors if any clients attempt to access the server. eg: hostname: gatsby "server name": sambaserver For some odd reason, it will show up like so in the network browser on Windows XP clients: sambaserver (GATSBYsambaserver) Attempting to access it results in windows attempting to connect to \\GATSBYsambashare ...which is not a valid network path. It should be attempting to connect to \\sambaserver
cat description | sed s/\"server name\"/\"server string\"/
I may have nailed down the bug. The server in question's hostname is a bit too long for a netbios name, so it's automatically truncated by samba during startup. In doing so, something odd happens and samba performs this copy/concatenation of the names. Adding the netbios name configuration directive to smb.conf with a name of appropriate length such that automatic truncation never occurs causes the server to show up normally in the network browser.
Just to make sure I'm not barking up the wrong tree, which Samba version are you using?
smbd --version Version 3.0.28 It's also in the bug info above.