Hi Roy,

 RJT> Why is it that the requester starting up seems to take 
 RJT> so long? 

It looks around the LAN to see what other resources are available that it
might be able to use. The need for this is moot with the default PEER type
configuration, but if it finds a PDC it can note this now for later use. The
timings used for doing this can be user controlled, but you really need to
know a LOT about SMB Networking and using a DOMAIN CONTROLLER to be able to
tune how long it takes. As usual, IBM are rather conservative with their
default timings... If you play with this (and there are HUNDREDS of
settings!!!), be very careful, you can kill a machine or a NETWORK so easily
by getting these wrong...

 RJT> Also on shutdown it sits there on "Peer 
 RJT> service is being stopped" for a while...

It advertises to the LAN what you are doing so that anything else on the
Network can "unlink" you from their resources. This should be automatically
handled, but its possible for the user to stop and start things manually, so
it takes some time to perform a tidy shutdown of the network. In a small
network its not too important, but on a large one it ensures there are plenty
of Network resources freely available at all times. NT takes the same time to  
shut down its Networking...


 PK> I normally remove the Network Messaging icon from the STARTUP 
 PK> folder and only start it if I need it, although it can be 
 PK> useful to debug problems.

 RJT> I'll look in the starup folder next time I fire that 
 RJT> up.  How would you use that?

Actually I was thinking of the AUDIT LOG, that tool CAN be useful for
debugging problems. Network Messaging is like a chat program, it allows you to 
converse with another user on the LAN, just a simple Desktop to Desktop
Messager type of function, TOTALLY unrelated to EMAIL!


 RJT> "Network SignON Coordinator/2", and 

 PK> If you connect to Network resources spread over different 
 PK> machines and types of systems, NSC can be VERY useful to 
 PK> co-ordinate your logon to each of these platforms. Essentially 
 PK> it remembers the last login to each platform and allows you to 
 PK> re-activate each login automatically.

 RJT> That sounds like something that would come in handy,  
 RJT> particularly with using another system as a fileserver.

ONLY if you use multiple DOMAIN Logins (IE you have MULTIPLE PDC's!) If you
dont use Domain Logins, then its useless (well almost, but there are so many
problems it can cause with PEER environments if you are not experienced).
Leave it alone unless you have more than 1 PDC and really need it!


 RJT> I think that ideally I'd like to end up with a setup 
 RJT> where any user (family mostly) can go to any of these 
 RJT> boxes and log on,  and use whatever resources are 
 RJT> available on the network as a whole.

The Advantage of using a DOMAIN CONTROLLER is that EVERYTHING can be
authenticated on the one system and makes what you want easier than individual 
configurations, it can make Multi-User administration over Multiple Platforms
nice and easy. 

The Dis-Advantage of using a DOMAIN CONTROLLER is that if your PDC dies and
there is no BDC, then you are TOTALLY DEAD in the water from a Networking
perspective on ALL machines! This is not strictly true, but unless you really
plan your DOMAIN and machine configurations carefully and set up backup
options (PEER Logins as well) on ALL Clients with matching logins and
passwords, then you can really have a hassle sorting out problems unless you
really know what you are doing. Tread very carefully down this path if you
wish to persue it... 


 RJT> It also says in that "Login" box that the Network is "LS",  
 RJT> dunno where that came from or how to change it.  The domain 
 RJT> name does show up properly in another part of that,  though.

LS refers to IBM LAN Server, the standard IBM Server platform that provides
the support for a PDC/BDC. 

 RJT> In "LAN Svcs" there's a "LAN Server Logon" and "Peer 
 RJT> Workstation Logon" and "Logoff".

I can't remember the exact locations of all objects with Warp 3, I totally
dislike the Folder layout used by IBM and move everything around to suit my
own perception of the world. IBM really seems to try hard and obfuscate things 
at times.......;-( The 3 logins I mention are there, but possibly under
different names. I change the names on many objects to reflect a more
"sensible" naming (IMHO).

The different Logons are actually all the same executable, but different
parameters cause it to present a different set of boxes (with slightly
different titles) to be filled in. Look up the LOGON.EXE program help and note 
the possible commandline options. The one program does LOCAL, PEER and DOMAIN
logins...


 PK>        The Logon is validated only on the local machine. In     
 PK>      most cases, a user logged in as this cannot access 
 PK> resources on other machines that requires user validation for 
 PK> access to shared resources.

 RJT> I could be mistaken about this,  but it appears that 
 RJT> such a thing is possible with Samba running on the 
 RJT> Linux box -- that if the OS/2 machine can be persuaded 
 RJT> to hand over the user login and password it'll deal 
 RJT> with things from there...

Thats what happens with a PEER Logon. When you connect from OS/2 to a share on 
a remote system that is PROTOTECTED, depending on how things are set up, OS/2
will present your current local Logon Id and prompt for a password, or supply
your current logged on password. This can be confiugred in "Sharing and
Connecting" for each resource you wish to connect to...


 PK> This is the same style of Networking as 
 PK> provided by W4WG 3.11 operation, HOWEVER it has 
 PK> advantages...;-).  

 RJT> What advantages are those?

An OS/2 PEER environment can actually access up to 4 different DOMAINS at the
same time. To do this requires manual editing of the OS/2 PEER configuration
files, but it works fine. I used my Laptop OS/2 Peer environment co-existing
in 3 different DOMAINS for some time. WFWG 3.11 cannot exist in more than 1
DOMAIN at the same time. This really does help when doing certain types of
work. I think NT can only exist in one DOMAIN at a time too, at least i can't
find a way of getting it to exist in more than 1 at a time!


 PK> 3. LAN SERVER LOGON
 PK>         This type of Logon REQUIRES a DOMAIN CONTROLLER to be 
 PK> used. I doubt if you have one of these so this is of no use to 
 PK> you. If you do not have a Primary or Secondary Domain 
 PK> Controller on your LAN, then you CANNOT USE THIS! Basically, 
 PK> your Logon is validated on the DOMAIN controller, the LOCAL 
 PK> user profile is NOT used at all. If the Userid exists on the 
 PK> local machine, then the user may have extra access as defined
 PK> lcoally, but this is NOT required.

 RJT> This sounds to me like something that Samba would deal 
 RJT> with on the Linux box as well,  though I still have 
 RJT> some work to do on that end.

I dont know SAMBA, but I would not expect it to provide a full DOMAIN PDC
environment, there is quite a lot to providing a full PDC Server. As I said
before, unless you really need it, dont play with a PDC. 


 RJT> But it still doesn't seem to want to see the Linux box for 
 RJT> some reason.  The w95 box shows up in that "Peer Resources" 
 RJT> box okay,  even though it's not turned on at the moment.

Thats actually quite normal, previously OS/2 Peer had seen the W95 machine and 
remembered that it existed on the network. You can't browse it (obviously),
but if the machine is placed back on the LAN you can go directly to it.

Browsing an SMB Network exposes the biggest problem with SMB. SMB is a very
"chatty" protocol (there are a lot of exchanges between 2 points to complete
an information exchange and because it is a broadcast protocol, everyone on
the same LAN segment always gets all the messages.

In your case, the non-visibility of the Linux box is a little puzzelling,
however there could be several reasons for this. If ALL machines are using the 
SAME DOMAIN NAME, then the only thing I can think of is that the Linux box
MUST need NETBIOS over TCP/IP as its transport. Dont be fooled by the Windows
machine not showing NETBIOS over TCP/IP, I would bet that its probably there,
but not obvious. I haven't touched a W95 machine myself so I dont know what it 
looks like in its Networking configuration. I know that on NT its definately
in there as a unique protocol...

Add NETBIOS over TCP/IP to the OS/2 machine and see if that helps...

TIP: If when you try and browse the resources on the LINUX box from OS/2 it
reports back quickly (within about 5 seconds) and shows  as available,
then LINUX is saying to OS/2 that the currently logged in User on the OS/2
machine, is not allowed access to anything on the LINUX machine (access is
being rejected). If there is a delay of about 15 seconds or more before this
message comes back, then the LINUX box is not being found in the same DOMAIN
as the OS/2 box. 


 PK> Its actually quite easy to do this, go into the INSTALL of PEER 
 PK> Services and follow through the install process until it finds 
 PK> the existing Database and asks if you want to RESET it. Reply 
 PK> YES and it installs the defaults again.

 RJT> Would that be the "Installation" under "LAN Svcs"?

Yep...


 PK> Make sure ALL machines have NETBIOS over TCP/IP configured in 
 PK> them. You may also have to set up some broadcast mappings in NB 
 PK> over IP, I dont know if SAMBA needs these or not (I have never 
 PK> used SAMBA).

 RJT> You're not the first one to say this,  but my understanding 
 RJT> of the protocol issues is that you don't need that unless you 
 RJT> want to route NETBIOS stuff across more than one lan segment,  
 RJT> and that having both NetBIOS and TCP/IP (as separate protocols 
 RJT> in there) should do the trick.

Generalyl that is true, however over time the useof NB over IP has become very 
popular because it can solve a lot of problems.

I have not used SAMBA so I can't say for sure, however SMB started life as a
pure NETBIOS protocol. it could ONLY operate on a local LAN segment, unless
you had some way of connecting LAN segments together that transported NETBIOS
messages. Because NETBIOS is BROADCAST, and linking LANS over a WAN was very
slow, the entire LAN would run at the speed of the slowest WAN connection. 

At this stage the concept of encapsulating the NETBIOS traffic inside a TCP/IP 
packet was born. This had 2 immediate advantages, TCP/IP is not a Broadcast
communications mode it is Point to Point, so a large portion of the NETBIOS
traffic over the WAN was eliminated, speeding up LAN operations dramatically. 
TCP/IP can be very efficiently routed to wherever it is needed, so traffic was 
removed from everywhere it was NOT needed, freeing up the local LAN segments.
Also included in NB over IP was the ability to locate and store addressing
info to help resolve the addressing issues without refering back to the source 
all the time.

The one down side to NB over IP is that all this requires extra configuration
and can slow down the messaging between the machines that actually do connect
over the NB over IP component, but it does work. I connected from my OS/2
Thinkpad in Sydney Australia, to my OS/2 Desktop in Auckland NZ (about 1200
miles away), over a very busy routed Network and used my Desktops Modem to
place a local call in Auckland. It worked very well...

So much networking involves WAN components these days that it is not unusual
to find NETBIOS over TCP/IP in configurations, in fact over 95% of our NETBIOS 
based machines at work (about 1500) have it installed. I think the default
networking configuration for NT installs NB and NB over IP anyway...


 RJT> am still stuck when I try to get any further results with 
 RJT> the "Sharing and Connecting" part,  particularly the "Create 
 RJT> a Connection" part.  I can enter the machine name of the 
 RJT> Linux box under the "Workstation" field,  at which point 
 RJT> it upcases it (could that be a problem?) 

No, all SMB resource names are in upper case. 

 RJT> and under the "Share/alias" field it says "".  

There are 3 things you need to check -

  1. The NETBIOS MACHINE name you supplied could not be found on 
     the network, 

  2. The NETBIOS MACHINE name could be found on the Network, but
     the DOMAIN NAME configured on the Server does NOT match the
     DOMAIN NAME on the OS/2 machine.

  3. The NETBIOS MACHINE name could be found on the Network, but 
     the user logged on to the OS/2 machine was not permitted to 
     access ANY resources on that Server.


 RJT> Trying to enter any of the share names that I'm looking at 
 RJT> in smb.conf on my other screen get me an error message:  
 RJT> "Error 53 occurred.  SYS0053: The network path was not found." 

Yep, the resource is not visible to OS/2 PEER, for whatever reason. From the
commandline enter -
  NET VIEW
and report the output. Also try -
  NET STATUS >zzz
and report the contents of the zzz file. The output is usually more than 30
lines so I send it to a file.


 RJT> There's obviously some bits I haven't got quite right,  
 RJT> as I just fired up the w95 box and it can see itself and 
 RJT> both the OS/2 box _and_ the Linux box there. 

Can the W95 box see AND CONNECT to a SHARE on the OS/2 box? 
Can the OS/2 box see AND CONNECT to a SHARE on the W95 box?

Regards........pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01