Samba won't dance (more info)

[Les]

On Wed, 2008-04-16 at 17:07 +0930, Tim wrote:
> Tim:
> >> I found it easier to configure Samba to use normal DNS style
> >> resolution, rather than have yet another file to configure (the
> >> lmhosts file).
> 
> Anne Wilson:
> > What exactly do you mean by 'normal DNS style'? 
> 
> On Linux, just about all networking things (e.g. mail, remote access to
> a shell, X display, etc.), usually makes use of the Domain Name System
> to resolve names and addresses.  It can do that by making use of a local
> hosts file, or a DNS server.
> 
> Since you've already got that system in place (or probably should do),
> it makes little sense to have to manage yet another separate thing that
> does almost the same thing, especially if you have things which will get
> different addresses from time to time.  If you have working DNS, then
> all other services should really "just work".
> 
> The origins of SMB predates the common use of TCP/IP and DNS in a LAN,
> hence why it has other methods, and used to (if it doesn't still)
> default to using other techniques.  For Samba, you'd change the order of
> things it uses to try and resolve names, to put DNS ahead of other
> techniques.
> 
> There's a similar set of circumstances for Linux networking, if you look
> at the nsswitch.conf file, you can change how your box resolves names.
> The usual default is to first try the hosts file, then do a DNS lookup,
> and there's other options, as well.
> 
I don't know about the rest of your content here, but TCP/IP predates
SMB by nearly 20 years.

TCP/IP wasn't used on DOS machines perhaps, although since most were
using networking in offices via various wired protocols, and were prior
to 1992 (the genesis of SMB), I think that to say it predates the common
use of TCP/IP is a bit misleading.

	Also SMB is a file serving process or protocol, not a networking
protocol which TCP/IP is.

Regards,
Les H