HOWTO: Resolve Netbios hostname system-wide

[javiwwweb]

Let me start with a little background info. I manage a computer lab with 85 workstations. I ocassionally use either RDP or VNC to do some maintenance. I have no problem doing this from windows, but I wanted my lonely Ubuntu workstation to be able to do the same thing. After about a week of research I am finally able to ping my windows workstations via their Netbios names. Woohoo!!

All you have to do is:

edit /etc/nsswitch.conf

change the line that says

hosts: files dns

to this:

hosts: files wins dns

(order does matter)

finally, you need to install winbind

sudo apt-get install winbind

that's all that it took for me.

now ping <hostname> works great. And I can finally use the built-in terminal server client with hostnames instead of IP addresses.


I hope this brief guide can be of help! Thank you all for always providing such great support in these forums!

[smack]

That's real handy. Thanks a lot!

[ashrack]

Tanx man. Works great

[prammy]

awesome tip

[ashrack]

This tip should be added to the guide. At help.ubuntu.com
Anyway to make this happen?

[One Quick Question]

Arg. I've been so confused about this for a while. Why isn't that wins bit on there by default?

[ashrack]

Arg. I've been so confused about this for a while. Why isn't that wins bit on there by default?

I am wondering the same thing?

[doclivingston]

Arg. I've been so confused about this for a while. Why isn't that wins bit on there by default?

Probably because winbind isn't installed by default (it's in Universe), the same reason why mdns lookup using Avahi isn't enabled by default.

[zeusave]

Thank you very much, very good post.

[ashrack]

Probably because winbind isn't installed by default (it's in Universe), the same reason why mdns lookup using Avahi isn't enabled by default.

But at least this should be in the guide