Linux support for WINS

Flatline

Golden Member
Jun 28, 2001
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In samba's smb.conf file, the line "wins support = yes" will make your machine a WINS server. There is also a line "wins server = w.x.y.z" which allows you to specify an existing WINS server for use.
 

rjain

Golden Member
May 1, 2003
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I think there's also a resolver plugin (as in nsswitch.conf) you can use to use samba for name resolution.
 

cleverhandle

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2001
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Originally posted by: rjain
I think there's also a resolver plugin (as in nsswitch.conf) you can use to use samba for name resolution.
There is - it's called libnss_wins.so and is specified with "wins" in nsswitch.conf. This is different than libnss_winbind.so. Winbind is used to resolve user and group ID's, WINS is used to resolve hostnames. If you need this functionality, you may have to do a bit of legwork - the default Samba build does not build libnss_wins, and most distros follow suit. Also, this works fine with "real" NT/2K WINS servers as well, not just Samba WINS servers.

If you need Linux to act as a WINS server instead of a client, then you need the "wins support = yes" line in smb.conf, as suggested above.