Network Neighbourhood Query

[Darren Mease]

Hi,

We have a domain server (win2000) and are running winXP SP2 machines.
I am wandering how network neighbourhood and 'my network places' work -
when I go to 'my network places' and browse to the Microsoft windows
network, I see our domain, and clicking on that reveals hosts in that
domain. My questions are:

- How does my host (WinXP) get this information - is it retrieved
directly from the domain server?
- If so, does the domain server keep an 'active list' somewhere with
regard to the hosts that are active? again, if so, if a host is turned
off, how long does it stay in that list?
- Is the simple act of logging on to the domain enough to get listed?

The more difficult query: I have 2 sites with to seperate domains,
DOMAINA.COM and DOMAINB.COM. They are connected over an IPSec site to
site VPN. If i belong to DOMAINA.COM and I want to see a list of hosts
on the DOMAINB.COM domain, how would i accomplish this? Is it anything
to do with trusts?

Sorry if this is not clear, I am more of a Cisco person, and have very
little MS knowledge. If anything needs to be made more clear, let me
know.

cheers!

Darren

 

[Ryan Hanisco]

Darren,

How this list is populated is somewhat dependent upon your windows
configuration. The best way is to user WINS and have the workstations
hit your WINS service for this information. Otherwise, this will come
down to the master browser which populates itself and queries through
broadcasts.

As a Cisco person, you can understand the overhead of this as well as
the problems maintaining this data across subnets, VPNs, or anything
that segments your broadcast domains.

So, bottom line, you should run WINS, hand out its address in DHCP, and
remember to set your node type (in DHCP) to 0x8 to let windows query DNS
first whenever looking for a specific host.

Also, look at the following articles for more information:

Configuring WINS
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/Library/702d3b5d-91be-40ed-a7e2-cf35ac978e191033.mspx

Description of NetBIOS Browsing
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/188001

Ryan Hanisco
FlagShip Integration Services

 

[yaardone]

How this list is populated is somewhat dependent upon your windows
configuration. The best way is to user WINS and have the workstations
hit your WINS service for this information. Otherwise, this will come
down to the master browser which populates itself and queries through
broadcasts.

I just abandonded wins for the very purpose of speeding up teh
conenction over my VPN. simular to the config previously stated I have
two AD domains connected via a VPN. I use a DNS server one other
Domain. So far this works great and the speed increase is noticable.
The problem however is network places does not show the other domain. I
do not want to go back to using WINS as the slow down doesn't seem to
eb worth it.

what am I missing.

 

[Ryan Hanisco]

I understand your speed and latency concerns using WINS. Unfortunately,
the Network Places can either populate itself from WINS or it can do
broadcasts to find an on-segment copy of the NetBIOS host list -- which
you are having trouble with.

So, you can either look into passing broadcasts into your tunnel and
forcing the routing of this traffic, or you can enable WINS but make
sure that you are telling workstations to hit DNS first (Node type 0x8).
The former is generally a bad idea, but the latter solution might be
your only bet. Much of the latency you were seeing with WINS should be
reduced with the appropriate setting of the Node type. This way if a
record is found, WINS will never be queried.

Ryan Hanisco
FlagShip Integration Services

 

[yaardone]

So, you can either look into passing broadcasts into your tunnel and
forcing the routing of this traffic, or you can enable WINS but make
sure that you are telling workstations to hit DNS first (Node type 0x8).
The former is generally a bad idea, but the latter solution might be
your only bet.

question will I still have to set up a push pull between both wins
servers.
or will the wins automatically populate from both the primary and
secondary dns?

 

[Darren Mease]

Hi Ryan,

Cheers for the response. Yeah, broadcast can cause a few headaches! I
will look through the below links and let you know.

cheers!

Ryan Hanisco formulated on Thursday :

 

[Darren Mease]

Hi Again!

Just ran a quick test, and I VPNed in from our host pcTEST. For
information, connection is to 3000 series, and then through PIX before
hitting our WINS server. Now the funny thing:

On the PDC itself, if I go to Control Panel -> Computer Management ->
Services and Applications -> WINS -> Active Registrations and then go
to 'Action' and search for this, it is registered as active, with the
correct IP, and expiration is set for 09/01 11:12 (I connected in
today, 03/01 at 11:12), so this looks like it communicated successfully
when I came in today, and is in the WINS database.
However, when (still on the PDC), I go to My Network Places -> Entire
Network -> Search for computers, it is not listed and cant be found.
What is the difference between these two cases?

cheers,

Darren

Darren Mease explained on 03/01/2007 :

 

[Ryan Hanisco]

Hi Darren,

Make sure that the TCP/IP properties on the server's NICs are set to be
aware of WINS and use it for resolutions. Otherwise, the server will
rely on broadcasts and its ability to contact the NetBIOS master browser
(or copy on segment).

Since your test computer would be on a different segment, it would not
register itself with the master browser list that the DC would see and
therefore would not show up. This is the gap that WINS fills -- it
allows for the creation of a browse list that spans subnets or broadcast
domains, more specifically.

So, you've proved that WINS is updated and that the DC is not using
WINS.

Ryan Hanisco

 

[Darren Mease]

Hi,

Ok - a little lost with that one, gonna have to go through those links
again (they were good links, by the way, as I didnt previously have the
foggiest what some of the terms meant!

I'll let you know if I get stuck - cheers for the assistance so far!

Ryan Hanisco submitted this idea :

 

[Darren Mease]

Hi,

Ummm - right, I may turn out to look like an idiot, but Im stuck
here...
When you say that I have proved that the DC is not using WINS, what
exactly does that mean - an 'ipconfig /all' shows that a primary WINS
server is configured (the DC is the WINS). Am I missing something?

cheers!

Darren Mease explained :

 

[Darren Mease]

Hiya,

Any update on this anybody? Sorry to be a pain but I want to make sure
Im clear of everything before messing around with our PDC!

cheers,

After serious thinking Darren Mease wrote :