HOWTO: Resolve Netbios hostname system-wide

[tbeehler]

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



to this:



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!

You sir are my personal hero. This problem was driving me NUTS! Worked perfectly!

Travis

[grendelkhan]

i agree, given that samba sharing is part of the official gnome directory sharing tool now, there's no reason this setup is not the default with ubuntu.

think of how easy it makes networking a new user's ubuntu install with their existing windows network?

Thank you again sir, you are a genius.

[soosh]

Thanks so much for this tip! It should absolutely be in the guide, or added to this wiki: http://easylinux.info/wiki/Ubuntu

[ace2005]

What does Netbios do? dont you get hacked using that? or is that just windows?

[ashrack]

What does Netbios do? dont you get hacked using that? or is that just windows?

By using NETBIOS U no longer have to access your remote computers by only IP numbers which is kinda hard to remember but with their computer name

[digitalsy]

doooood! I can go to bed now, this problem was driving my insannnneee! THANKS!

[claes]

By using NETBIOS U no longer have to access your remote computers by only IP numbers which is kinda hard to remember but with their computer name

Yes thats correct but you do it by using the microsoft way of doing it with WINS. A much better solution would be that ubuntu would handle dynamic dns.

Claes

[ashrack]

Yes thats correct but you do it by using the microsoft way of doing it with WINS. A much better solution would be that ubuntu would handle dynamic dns.

Could U be more specific, why would DYN DNS be better?

[qferret]

Though in most cases I agree dynamic DNS is a better solution, what about small LAN's that don't have their own DNS servers? Shouldn't need to hardcode IP's and use host files just because your network is small and not worth the expense of your very own DNS server. NetBIOS is a way to accomplish this without extra hardware....

btw....muchos gracias javiwwweb!!! =D>

[mr.p]

Thumbs up on this HOWTO, will be sure to remember this.