nmbd/manpage

Navigation
computing: software: Samba: nmbd:

NAME
nmbd - NetBIOS name server to provide NetBIOS over IP naming services to clients

SYNOPSIS
nmbd [-D] [-F] [-S] [-a] [-i] [-o] [-h] [-V] [-d ] [-H ] [-l ] [-p ] [-s ]

DESCRIPTION
This program is part of the Samba(7) suite.

nmbd is a server that understands and can reply to NetBIOS over IP name service requests, like those produced by SMB/CIFS clients such as Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and LanManager clients. It also participates in the browsing protocols which make up the Windows "Network Neighborhood" view.

SMB/CIFS clients, when they start up, may wish to locate an SMB/CIFS server. That is, they wish to know what IP number a specified host is using.

Amongst other services, nmbd will listen for such requests, and if its own NetBIOS name is specified it will respond with the IP number of the host it is running on. Its "own NetBIOS name" is by default the primary DNS name of the host it is running on, but this can be overridden by the netbios name in smb.conf. Thus nmbd will reply to broadcast queries for its own name(s). Additional names for nmbd to respond on can be set via parameters in the smb.conf(5) configuration file.

nmbd can  also be used as a WINS (Windows Internet Name Server) server. What this basically means is that it will act as a WINS database server, creating a database from name registration requests that it receives and replying to queries from clients for these names.

In addition, nmbd can act as a WINS proxy, relaying broadcast queries from clients that do not understand how to talk the WINS protocol to a WINS server.

FILES

 * /etc/inetd.conf:If the server is to be run by theinetd meta-daemon, this file must contain suitable startup  information for the meta-daemon.
 * /etc/rc (or whatever initialization script your system uses):If running  the  server as a daemon at startup, this file will need to contain an appropriate startup sequence for the server.
 * /etc/services:If running the server via the meta-daemon inetd, this file must contain a  mapping  of  service  name (e.g., netbios-ssn) to service port (e.g., 139) and protocol type (e.g., tcp).
 * /etc/samba/smb.conf:This is the default location of the smb.conf(5) server configuration file.
 * When run as a WINS server (see thewins support parameter in the smb.conf(5) ), nmbd will store the WINS database in the file wins.dat in the var/locks directory configured under wherever Samba  was configured to install itself.


 * If nmbd  is  acting  as a  browse master (see the local master parameter in the smb.conf(5), nmbd will store the browsing database in the file browse.dat  in the  var/locks  directory  configured under wherever Samba was configured to install itself.

SIGNALS
To shut  down  an  nmbd process it is recommended that SIGKILL (-9) NOT be used, except as a last resort, as this may leave the name database in an inconsistent state. The correct way to terminate nmbd is to send it a SIGTERM (-15) signal and wait for it to die on its own.

nmbd will  accept SIGHUP, which will cause it to dump out its namelists into the file namelist.debug  in the /var/run/samba directory (or the var/locks directory configured under wherever Samba was  configured  to  install itself). This will also cause nmbd to dump out its server database in the log.nmb file.

The debug  log level of nmbd may be raised or lowered using smbcontrol(1) (SIGUSR[1|2] signals are no longer used since Samba 2.2). This is to allow transient problems to be diagnosed, whilst still running at a normally low log level.

VERSION
This man page is correct for version 3.0 of the Samba suite.

AUTHOR
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.

The original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer. The man page sources were converted to  YODL  format (another  excellent  piece of Open Source software, available at ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/) and updated for the Samba 2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. The conversion to DocBook for Samba  2.2  was  done  by  Gerald Carter. The conversion to DocBook XML 4.2 for Samba 3.0 was done by Alexander Bokovoy.

Edit Log

 * 2006-09-09 Transcribed from Ubuntu Dapper manpage; latest version here.