HP CIFS Windows 2000 Interoperability (October 2002)

CIFS/9000 and Windows 2000 Interoperability

Hewlett-Packard

CIFS/9000 starts a single nmbd daemon on the system to listen on port 137 for all incoming

NetBIOS name service requests. While the number of smbd daemons on the system equates

to the number of client connections to the server, the nmbd always stays at 1 daemon per

server.

The third most important rule to remember when integrating CIFS/9000 Server with

Windows 2000 is that Windows 2000 enables NetBIOS by default. Unless the domain

configuration is explicitly changed, CIFS/9000 Server will resolve names to addresses in a

Windows 2000 domain.

6.1.2 WINS

Since NetBIOS has a flat namespace and is based upon UDP broadcast transmission, it is

inherently incompatible with a multi-subnet network. WINS represents the Windows

Internet Name Service, and it provides NetBIOS with the ability to operate on multi-subnet

networks. WINS consists of what are usually dedicated Windows servers that hold a name-

to-IPaddress resolution database. Servers and clients configure specific WINS servers, and

then look there first when attempting to resolve names. The most common resolution order

is to look at the WINS server first for a name, then broadcast for name resolution if it cannot

be found. This is called H-Node NetBIOS, and it is depen dant upon the availability of WINS.

In a Windows 2000 domain, Microsoft recommends configuring the Windows 2000 version of

WINS, which is essentially the NT4.0 WINS functionality enhanced with the following

features:

• Persistent connections

• Manual tombston es

• Improved management tools

• Enhanced filtering and record searching

• Dynamic deletion

• Record verification and version number validation

• Expert functions

In addition, the Windows 2000 Pro client is enhanced for WINS with the following features:

• Increased fault tolerance (configure more than 2 WINS servers)

• Change NetBIOS options without a reboot

CIFS/9000 Server has a configuration option for a WINS server in the smb.conf configuration

file. Currently there can only be one WINS server configured, so WINS redundancy is not

possible on a CIFS/9000 server. However, HP has provided an enhancement to the Samba

developers to add multi-WINS server capability.

6.2 BIND – UNIX DNS

BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) is the industry standard DNS (Domain Name

System). RFC 1034 defines the DNS database format, and RFC 1035 defines the domain

name structure (these originated with 882 and 883, respectively). Since the introduction of

these two RFCs, there have been many additions, clarifications, and changes to the DNS

specification, and a resulting plethora of accompanying RFCs (which will be identified in a

handy table in a subsequent sub-module). The definitive BIND DNS information sources

are: http://www.isc.org/products/BIND,; and the O’Reilly book “DNS and BIND”, fourth

edition.