lmhosts file and NETBIOS suffix

[david7777777777]

How do you setermine the NetBIOS suffix for a machine? I'm running Win2K Server and I'm trying to get an NT 4 Workstation to see it using NetBEUI. This vendor's app uses NetBEUI to lookup computers. I've seen these lmhosts files with references to a NetBIOS name suffix like "\0x8n" or something like that. Any clue as to how I discover this setting for my Win 2K Server? Thanks.

 

[ShackDaddy]

Don't worry about 'setting' any suffixes. They work on their own accord. If both systems are on the same subnet and have NetBEUI loaded, you should be able to find each other using broadcasts. If your W2k system also has other protocols loaded, you might want to check your bindings as well.

If you need to, you can edit the lmhosts file on your NT system and add a single standard server entry for the W2k system. Don't bother with creating any non-computer mappings. And get rid of the '.sam' extension on the file.

Another thing, are you sure the vendor's app uses NetBEUI to look up things? I think it's more likely that it uses NetBIOS names to look up things. In that case, you don't need to have NetBEUI loaded as a protocol at all, since M$ uses it commonly within the context of TCP/IP. I would get rid of NetBEUI, create an lmhosts file, and start from there. Also tell the W2K server to enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP for that adapter.

 

[yizhar]

HI.

You should first understand the difference between NetBEUI and NetBT (NetBIOS over TCP/IP) - They are different protocols but they are both using NetBIOS names.

LMHOSTS files are used only for NetBIOS over TCP/IP,
they are ignored by the NetBEUI protocol.

You can find out the NetBIOS over TCP/IP "Scope ID" by using the command:
IPCONFIG /ALL

As far as I know, NetBEUI simply does not have a Scope ID.

Bye


Yizhar Hurwitz

http://come.to/yizhar

http://teachers.sivan.co.il/yizhar

 

[david7777777777]

Yizhar, I understand all that but I sincerely thank you for your effort. In case this will help anyone here's what I did to solve the problem: I added the NetBIOS suffix of my Win2K Server to the second column in the lmhosts file on the NT Workstation like this:

192.30.222.111 "webserver \0x1d" #PRE

There must be EXACTLY 20 characters between those quotation marks or the entry is invalid and useless. At first I didn't have that suffix in there but as soon as I added it everything worked. There are some TechNet articles on this stuff but I never found one that explained this suffix thing very well or how to get it. A fellow admin showed me this and he learned it from another guy. You can see this suffix stuff in WINS records though.

 

[yizhar]

HI.

A better solution is to remove the Netbios scope ID from the server TCP/IP configuration and from clients.

Or am I missing something here?

Bye
Yizhar Hurwitz

http://come.to/yizhar

http://teachers.sivan.co.il/yizhar

 

[ShackDaddy]

Yizhar, stop worrying about the NetBIOS scope ID. It has no relevance here, given the data. Few people are crazy enough to have tried to utilize it and David never mentioned it. He's wanting to hard-code specific NetBIOS name mappings into his local NetBIOS name cache. I'm curious as to how it was failing and why hardcoding an entry for a master browser would have fixed it.

ShackDaddy

 

[david7777777777]

You got me. It's just one of those things where it works and I have to move on. No time to figure it out although I like to know everything about everything and exactly how it works. Unfortunately I don't always have time to pursue everything to the end.

 

[Guest_imported]

support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q180/0/94.asp

How to Write an LMHOSTS File for Domain Validation and Other Name Resolution Issues (Q180094)