WINS query on Workgroup name

[ATCal]

We have several Domains and several workgroups. I have noticed a large number of WINS requests from Workgroup machines to the Workgroup name.
Can anyone shed some light on this?

We have WINS servers for the Domains, but the TCOM (workgroups) guys don't like us th touch their machines, and do not have any WINS entries.

Would WINS entries solve this problem?

Can anyone shed some light?

Thanks,
Al
atc-computing@home.com

 

[pay]

In Windows OS you have Wins automatically activated after network installation and if you need to run Netbios over IP or there are needs for Server/Workstation services you have to have Wins enabled.
Wins service does automaticlly Wins queries and if there is no any Wins entries in computer, queries are sent to Broadcast address. And more, broadcast threshold for switched networks should not be more than 20 per second, after that network services start to slow down.

So, if you have problems with broadcasts or some "mysterious" things happens in your network every now and then, you should apply Wins entry for those Workgroup machines. Otherwise there are no need for that.

BR,

pay

 

[wybnormal]

Correction-

The broadcast per second number is very fluid. The 20pps is way to low for a 100Mbps or Gig link. It *could* be low on a 10 half network depending on the protocols being used. The only way to really decide what is high and low with broadcasts is to sniff the network over a period of time, build some graphs of total traffic, type of traffic and time of traffic. Almost always you can find SOMETHING to turn off or filter but you most certainly will be surprised to what IS broadcast traffic.

As far as WINS goes, another point to remember is the NODE TYPE. There are 4 types and one in particuler uses broadcast as the starting point which is bad(normally) See this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q160177

Also- make sure the default gateway is set correctly or you will get a bunch of ARPs from the workstations trying to find other nodes

Cisco has an excellent paper on this subject here:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/473/winnt_dg.htm

MikeS
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http://www.packetattack.com

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