HP CIFS Client A.02.02 Administrator's Guide

Installing, Configuring, and Using the HP CIFS Client
Name Resolution: NetBIOS Name Service, WINS, DNS, IP Configuration
Chapter 2 37
Name Resolution: NetBIOS Name Service,
WINS, DNS, IP Configuration
When the CIFS Client attempts to mount a CIFS server, it must first
establish a NetBIOS connection to the server, hence the server specified
in the mount or cifsmount command must be the CIFS server’s
NetBIOS (Windows) name. To resolve the name to an IP address, the
CIFS Client uses the following lookup methods, in this order (the
sequence stops when a match is found):
• A configured server-specific IP address
• WINS lookup
• NetBIOS broadcast
• DNS lookup
Only NetBIOS broadcast and DNS are enabled by default, they are
controlled through the configuration parameters lookupTryNetbios and
lookupTryDns by setting these parameters to yes.
The CIFS Client can also use WINS (a Windows name resolution service
similar to DNS) or server-specific settings in the configuration file, to
locate CIFS servers. WINS provides an efficient lookup mechanism that
is sufficient for most CIFS environments. The configuration for name
resolution can be as follows:
• To enable WINS, set the nbnsWinsIp parameter to the IP address of
a WINS server. The CIFS servers to which you want to connect must
be registered with the WINS server. For example, if you set the
lookupTrynetbios and lookupTryDns parameters to yes and
specify the IP address of the WINS server to 110.112.114.115, the
CIFS Client first attempts a WINS lookup, then a NetBIOS
broadcast, then a DNS lookup.
WINS is a feature of the NetBIOS Name Service, hence, disabling
lookupTryNetbios also disables WINS. For example, if you set
lookupTryNetbios to no, the HP CIFS Client ignores the
nbnsWinsIp setting and does not attempt a WINS lookup at all.