14.04 Cannot see Windows share in workgroup

[QIII]

Could you post the contents of /etc/hosts?

[scottbomb]

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 main-linux

[QIII]

Above that, try adding the IP and name of your Windows machine.

For instance, I have dedicated IPs on my LAN, so I have an entry for my Windows machine thus:

192.168.1.4     NEWBIE

You'll probably have to reboot.

[scottbomb]

I entered it, saved, and rebooted. Still nothing.

I recall using that work-around when this problem came up in previous distros. However, telling the localhost who s machine is in a hard-coded file is not the preferred way to do name resolution. And besides, these machines can ping each other without the name being in the hosts file. Perhaps this file is where the OS normally stores resolved hosts and for some reason, the other machines on the LAN aren't enumerated?

[QIII]

/etc/hosts still makes sense on a limited-sized network. I wouldn't use it in an office.

Right now I have my Windows machine booted to Ubuntu Server for some work I'm doing, so I can't look in to this much further just at the moment. But I don't have any problems seeing shares on my Windows machine when it's running.

[fl_litig8r]

Let's try to narrow it down. Open a command prompt and ping the Windows box by name. Does it see it and ping it? If yes, what happens when you run smbtree from a command prompt? Does it see the shares on the windows box?

If you can't even ping it by name, you've got a name resolution problem. If smbtree can see the windows shares, then it's not a samba problem.

[scottbomb]

Thanks, here they are:

scottbomb@main-linux:~$ ping windows
PING windows (192.168.1.5) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from windows (192.168.1.5): icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=1.01 ms
64 bytes from windows (192.168.1.5): icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.555 ms
64 bytes from windows (192.168.1.5): icmp_seq=3 ttl=128 time=0.577 ms
64 bytes from windows (192.168.1.5): icmp_seq=4 ttl=128 time=0.565 ms
^C
--- windows ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.555/0.678/1.018/0.198 ms
scottbomb@main-linux:~$ smbtree
Enter scottbomb's password: 
WORKGROUP
        \\MAIN-LINUX                    main-linux server (Samba, Ubuntu)
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Deskjet_3520_2 
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Deskjet_3520       Deskjet_3520
                \\MAIN-LINUX\print$             Printer Drivers
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Books          
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Music          
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Videos         
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Downloads      
                \\MAIN-LINUX\OS             
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Backup         
                \\MAIN-LINUX\Temp           
                \\MAIN-LINUX\router         
                \\MAIN-LINUX\VirtualBox VMs 
                \\MAIN-LINUX\IPC$               IPC Service (main-linux server (Samba, Ubuntu))