How should /etc/hosts read for Samba browsing to work?

[gregphil]

With Samba configured and working on a private sub-net of 8 machines 1/2 windows boxes and 1/2 linux distributions, I find it is necessary to set my network "domain" to the peer-to-peer workgroup (= MYGROUP) AND to set smb.conf workgroup = MYGROUP correctly. It also appears to be necessary to edit the /etc/hosts file. (???) But what should the /etc/hosts file look like? My hosts file will only allow browsing when it is set as below (the machine name is 'LIVING-ROOM' and the workgroup is MYGROUP)

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 LIVING-ROOM.MYGROUP

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

This means there are at least three separate places where I need to set the "workgroup". Further the network 'domain' setting is getting reset to blank every time I reboot. Why? Other Linux distributions (like CentOS 5.2) do not have this problem.

If we hope to be able to compete with Windows someday, the basic stuff like peer-to-peer browsing needs to work AND be simple to setup. :confused:

Thank You.

[mrsteveman1]

That sounds odd, because hosts is a DNS thing and samba doesn't use DNS, it uses WINS and i believe netbios over TCP broadcasts to find local boxes.

[gregphil]

I am no networking expert, but in a true peer-to-peer network there are no servers (no domain controller, no WINS servers, no servers period). Peer-to-peer is by far the most common small network setup.

My question is how Ubuntu (and Kubuntu) have chosen to modify the /etc/hosts format to suit the new distributions needs. under CentOS 5.2 one simply set the 'domain' to the peer-to-peer workgroup and the /etc/hosts file ended up looking like this:

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
etc

Under ubuntu they seem to have thought up a new scheme. If it was documented somewhere (anywhere) I could just edit the /etc/hosts file and make it correct. After two days of effort I finally got peer-to-peer browsing to work with ubuntu / kubuntu, but the 'domain' keeps getting cleared to blank at each reboot. Then browsing stops working.

Someone must know how to make this work (and stay working)

Thank You.

[gregphil]

Update: authenticated file sharing is broken in ubuntu 8.04.1

The most recent version of ubuntu 8.04.1 switched gnome libraries and broke authenticated file sharing:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/224351

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gvfs/+bug/207072

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=524485#c26