Domain browsing problems 2

[siteglass]

Please Help!!

Ok, I have a problem browsing my win2k domains through windows network. I have four domains,
Domain A, Domain B, Domain C, & Domain D. DA,B&C are in the same building and on the same ip range 192.168.3.* and D-D is in another building with the ip range 192.168.0.*. The problem I have is when using active directory to view the domains I can see all PDC's fine and browse compters and servers etc from anywhere , but when I use windows network I can only see the domains from the building I am actually at, e.g If I'm in domain A,B or C I can browse them fine but unable to see D and if I'm at Domain D's site I can only see that domain and not the others.
I have tried using wins but this does not reslove the problem, I think it may be a problem with DNS or the ip ranges being different.

Any suggestions?????

 

[ShackDaddy]

If all the clients in both subnets use WINS, you won't have this problem. It's not a problem with DNS or the ranges you are using. DNS just doesn't provide for the same sort of browsing experience. There is, AFAIK, no new mechanism for W2K clients to advertise shared folders and printers without relying on the old browsing environment, which on a routed LAN, tends to work best with WINS to tie the routed browsing environment together.

When you tried using WINS, how far did you go in implementing it?

The deal is this: in the 192.168.3.0 network there are four domains and four domain master browsers, one for each domain. In the other subnet, there is only one domain, and a single master browser. Without WINS, only systems that are members of domain D in the 192.168.3.0 network have any chance of being able to see the hosts across the router, the other domains won't, since they are not only from a different domain, they aren't local either. By implementing WINS, and giving it some time to get established, all five of the domain master browsers will register themselves in WINS and will then use each other's WINS entries to identify each other and send each other the lists of resources that they have identified in their respective subnets. Without WINS, it's very difficult to get this sort of grass-roots accumulation of data.

Some may not agree with me that WINS would be valuable here, but I'm not backing down. Easily, that is.

ShackDaddy

 

[siteglass]

I have wins running and it's established and its ok in the wins admin but it has not resolved the browsing issue that I have got!!
It really looks like its something to do with the ip ranges cause when I put all servers on the same range 192.168.3.* it workes, but I cant keep it like this cause I need more than 70ips
Any suggestions as to where I might be going wrong?

 

[ShackDaddy]

Do you actually have a router, or are all your hosts sharing the same network segment?

Here's a great solution for you: just change your subnet mask! You could make it any of the following:

255.255.0.0
255.255.128.0
255.255.192.0
255.255.224.0
255.255.240.0
255.255.248.0
255.255.252.0

Any of these masks will tell your hosts that they are in the same subnet, and will give you a whole bunch of additional hosts to use. For example, if you pick 255.255.252.0, your network will start at 192.168.0.1 and stop at 192.168.3.255, giving you 1024 hosts. Some people will argue and say this isn't a valid address range since they would want the first usable host to be 192.168.4.1, but they aren't quite right. This one is both usable and will allow you to leave all your addresses as they are, just changing the subnet masks.

ShackDaddy

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[siteglass]

So do I change the subnet mask on Domain A,B,C or D? And should I keep the ip addresses the same on all the domain controllers?
This is more detailed info below so you know exactly how its set up.

Domain A Domain B
ip 192.168.3.6 ip 192.168.3.5
Sub net 255.255.255.0 Sub net 255.255.255.0

Domain C
ip 192.168.3.7
Sub net 255.255.255.0

Domain D
ip 192.168.0.1
Sub net 255.255.255.0

Any do I keep wins?

 

[welshguy]

Shackdaddy's right DNS is not involved here - but then again he's the champion of WINS .

Although there is definately an alternative - browsing through the AD, publishing resources like shares and printers etc here. Of course these are published rather than advertised so it's not done automatically but they can be found much more efficiently using LDAP tools.

I would guess your problem is something to do with the browse lists. These are maintained via broadcasts but
bottom line is that you do need WINS set up to register these browsemasters over a routed network. There can also be an issue with browser elections - part of the election process involves the machines OS - so you can have a Win2000 desktop client being the browse master for that network segment (not good)

I know network browsing is simple to use for users but it's not the most efficient way there are other ways - get all this info published into the AD and get your network working efficiently.

WINS and this method of network browsing is the past - move into the future! (although if you've got a mixed environment this is not an option but it's where you should aim for IMHO)

 

[ShackDaddy]

Thanks, welshguy. Exactly right, as usual. :-D

Back to the subnetting thing though. I'm assuming that you really only have a single network segment, and that whatever you were using for your default gateway was routing between your two buildings, but using the same wire. If the buildings aren't really merely 50 feet or so from each other, you may well have a router, but the fact that you said that you were able to put all they systems in the same subnet at one point makes me think that this solution will work for you.

My solution would be to change ALL the subnet masks, on every system, to 255.255.252.0. Don't worry about which domain has what, this is an issue that doesn't involve domains. If you understand what it is I'm recommending, you will also understand that every device has to be configured with the new subnet mask, including your firewall, if you have one.

Leave all the IP addresses exactly as they are. The only problem I can forsee is that you may have one machine that had two NIC's to route between the 192.168.0 network and teh 192.168.3 network. Or perhaps it was just a single NIC on your domain D domain server that had two IP addresses bound to it, one from each network, and was routing across them. Those networks can now be connected with a hub or switch, thoughtfully. In the 2-NIC situation, you'll need to watch out for name registration errors, and may want to keep one of the NIC's unplugged. If you run into problems related to that, let people here know, and we'll help you take care of it. ShackDaddy

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[siteglass]

I would be quite happy to do that but there are alot of laptops using win98 and 95 and It would be really cool if I could get it all working so they could see all domains and could logon to either domain from any site like the win2k workstations can.
There must be a way of fixing this problem cause how else do all these mixed mode networks do it??

Any more ideas guys

 

[ShackDaddy]

Use WINS. If you use WINS properly, by handing out the WINS information via DHCP, all your systems will be able to properly browse. Also make sure that all your printer and file servers and domain controllers register with WINS. Also, and this is very important, only set up ONE WINS server. It doesn't matter which domain controller you put it on, or even if it's a domain controller. I'd just add that you shouldn't put it on a multi-homed system.

If you set up a good WINS environment, you won't need to worry about the addressing thing I was talking about. Both are decent solutions, but you only need to pick one.

Last note about subnet addressing. You could change the subnet masks on most of your hosts by changing it in the scope options on the DHCP server. ShackDaddy

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[welshguy]

I agree (twice in one day !!!)
This really should be working if WINS is set up and working ok.

Although Shackdaddys addressing scheme looks like it would work fine by just moving all your clients onto the same network subnet. I would certainly not recommend changing your IP addressing scheme that easily and without some great thought. If you go this route you must understand it and the implications - for instance - leaving all IP addresses the same and just changing the subnets - possibly might be worth checking that a server doesn't end up with a reserved network or broadcast address by default ?

It is rather an elegant solution though !
Think very hard before implementing it though.

 

[siteglass]

So this will sort out the problem then if I use one wins server rather than 3? Why do I need to use wins on 2k servers as I thought DNS was brought in so that you dont need to use it.
So what your saying is that if I want to use 95-98 clients on my 2k network I have to have wins servers running so they can browse the network properly?

 

[siteglass]

Cheers guys for all your help . I'm gonna try changing the subnets to see if that works. Do I need to use wins aswell when I change the subnets? If yes should I use one wins server instead of three?

P.S How do I vite you guys as helpful

 

[welshguy]

Siteglass
Be careful !!

Try reading these articles first - if you change the subnets your reordering your IP addressing scheme just to fix one problem - you could cause others. Having said that Shackdaddys subnet solution will almost certainly work as everything will be on the local network.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/advanced/help/sag_wins_und_browsingwithtcpip.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/advanced/help/sag_wins_und_locatingdcsusingnetbt.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/en/advanced/help/sag_wins_und_browsingoverview.htm

If you read the above it will give you a good idea how browsing works - you just need to make sure that you have an up to date browse master on each network segment with knowledge of all computers on network. Wins should help you achieve this. There are details in the articles.

Your setup should work - it probably just needs a tweak
Depending on how many clients you have you could even use an Lmhosts file as an interim fix (although I hate myself for suggesting this !!)

Cheers

 

[ShackDaddy]

Yes, I heartily second welshguy's warning. If I were you I would go for the WINS solution. Once you mentioned that you set up three WINS servers, I assume one for each domain, it's pretty obvious why WINS didn't work for you before, especially since replication probably wasn't configured between them. WINS replication can be a huge headache, and if one can get away with having a single WINS server do all the work, which you most assuredly can, please do that!

The solution here is simple to implement: Set up a single WINS server. Start fresh. Configure DHCP to include WINS information when assigning addresses to the clients, and then set the servers up as WINS clients too, merely by entering the address of the WINS server in the proper config screen that you are already familiar with.

Re-masking your network like I mentioned above will probably work out in the long run and would be a good and clever thing for a budding network engineer to do, but you will probably run into many weird problems over the course of a few weeks while you figure out the effects that it has on the network and find hosts that weren't properly configured. In your shoes, I would just go with the WINS solution. ShackDaddy

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[siteglass]

Cheers again guys! I think I will try the wins solution first to see if that works and if it doesn't then I will try and change the subnet. You see there is a nt 4 network already in place at the moment whcih is live and the windows 2k network is on it's own network so if anything goes wrong its only a test so its ok.

 

[siteglass]

Cheers again guys! I think I will try the wins solution first to see if that works and if it doesn't then I will try and change the subnet. You see there is a nt 4 network already in place at the moment whcih is live and the windows 2k network is on it's own network so if anything goes wrong its only a test so its ok.

 

[welshguy]

Siteglass,

Let us know how you get on !

Cheers

 

[siteglass]

Shackdaddy. Do I just set up one wins server on Domain A and point all clients and servers to it and thats it?

 

[welshguy]

Shouldn't matter where it is (although prob better in Domain A)- I think Shackdaddy's point was just having one WINS server to avoid replication problems and get all adresses on one WINS server.

Avoid multi-homed servers though as there are issues with WINs on these.

Just make this is the only WINS server for all your domains and make sure your clients are running in h-node (hybrid) which can be configured via DHCP scope options.

 

[siteglass]

Should it matter is I have my wins on domain A and my dhcp on domain B?