MasterBrowser - How Do The Computers Decide Who Gets To Be It?

[Zema Bus]

How is it determined which computer on a network gets to be Masterbrowser? I notice they each have messages in the Win2K logs that there was a network announcement that it was the masterbrowser but that it's not the masterbrowser, and others saying they couldn't promote themselves to masterbrowser, and that the computer that believes it is the master browser is ."...". They all agree on which one believes it is the one, which is how I know which one is really the masterbrowser. What's that all about? And how the heck does the masterbrowser get elected? :)

[poqal]

http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54703&highlight=master+browser

Hi Zema


I don't know anything about Master Browser, but did remember we had a discussion about this once with LP. Maybe something in this thread will help you.

[Grogan]

These ought to answer

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=188001

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=102878

[Zema Bus]

Thanks Grogan and Poqal.



If there is not a domain controller present on a given network segment, then an election process is started that chooses a master browser and backup browser from the computers on the segment using the following order of priority:


Windows 2000 Server
Windows 2000 Professional
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server Enterprise Edition
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation
Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11


How does Linux fit into that picture when it's on a network with Windows machines?

[Grogan]

Samba can participate as a browser. The comments for the settings in the sample smb.conf explain it fairly well.

# Browser Control Options:
# set local master to no if you don't want Samba to become a master
# browser on your network. Otherwise the normal election rules apply
; local master = no

# OS Level determines the precedence of this server in master browser
# elections. The default value should be reasonable
; os level = 33

# Domain Master specifies Samba to be the Domain Master Browser. This
# allows Samba to collate browse lists between subnets. Don't use this
# if you already have a Windows NT domain controller doing this job
; domain master = yes

# Preferred Master causes Samba to force a local browser election on startup
# and gives it a slightly higher chance of winning the election
; preferred master = yes

However, be very careful of these settings, especially the Domain Master Browser. You can royally screw up a Windows network with that if there's a domain controller and it may take someone time to figure out that there's a rogue samba server on the network somewhere causing the problems :nuts:

[Zema Bus]

Thanks Grogan, Samba was a little intimadating when I've played with it in the past, but I'm going to see if I can get it working on the network with these Win2K machines.