Name resolution in a workgroup. How?

[Stephen Gilkes]

I have 2 XP computers in a small workgroup.

The computers are connected to each other using a Buffalo Air Station. The
air station provides DHCP and its DNS name servers are set to those of my
ISP.

The air station connects to the internet via a 3Com LANModem. This can also
be used to connect to my office which also uses a 3Com LANModem.

I was just wondering: what provides the name resolution for the workgroup
computers? Is there a local DNS?

[Ron Lowe]

"Stephen Gilkes" > wrote in message
...
> I have 2 XP computers in a small workgroup.
>
> The computers are connected to each other using a Buffalo Air Station. The
> air station provides DHCP and its DNS name servers are set to those of my
> ISP.
>
> The air station connects to the internet via a 3Com LANModem. This can
also
> be used to connect to my office which also uses a 3Com LANModem.
>
> I was just wondering: what provides the name resolution for the workgroup
> computers? Is there a local DNS?
>
>
>


Name resolution for your workgroup occours by NetBIOS broadcasts.

The name resolution sequence is rather convoluted....
First succesfull resolution is used...

1) Query DNS namespace:
Hosts file;
DNS servers;

If name <16 characters, ( ie potential NetBIOS name )
AND NetBIOS is enabled, then...

2) Query NetBIOS namespace:
NetBIOS Name Cache;
< NodeType determines exact sequence from here on >
WINS servers ( if specified )
NetBIOS broadcasts;
LMHOSTS file.

In the absence of everything else, then it falls through to NetBIOS
broadcasts.
This is what happens in most serverless peer-to-peer networks.

Interesting note:

For a LAN sharing the Internet connection using XP's Internet Connection
Sharing (ICS), the Host machine provides a mini-DHCP server to allocate IP
addresses. It also provides a DNS forwarder, where the clients can point
to the ICS host as DNS server. ( It, in turn, forwards the DNS queries to
the ISP. )

But there's a bit of undocumented cleverness.
The DHCP allocator keeps a note of the IP addresses he doles out in a file
called "hosts.ics".
The DNS forwarder checks this file before forwarding to the ISP.
So in effect, there is an automatically configured local DNS.
It maintains it's own 'zone file' automatically, and as long as the clients
use
the ICS host as their DNS server, it will provide local DNS resolution.


--
Best Regards
Ron Lowe
MVP - Windows Networking