Accessing Windows share (netbios) in an other VLAN

[Flavio Boniforti]

Hello everybody.

I'm having some trouble with a network setup I'm trying to deploy.

The thing is, I have VLAN 10 in which my clients are located (172.22.3.0/24) and they need to access Windows shares located at 172.16.1.100 (other VLAN, other subnet /16).

Actually it is failing when I try to do \\windowsserver\share on the Windows client. But if I type \\172.16.1.100\share I get through it. With some packet sniffing I discovered that my clients sends out packets with destination 172.22.3.255 port 137 (netbios-ns). Am I right assuming this is a broadcast transmission, seeking for some netbios name server?

The only suggestion I found to work around this issue, is to set up some WINS server, which could be managing "inter-VLAN" netbios, because afair netbios is a *non-routable* protocol...

Can anybody please tell me what he/she thinks and how I could be solving this issue?

Kind regards,

F.

[Jon Marshall · Accepted solution]

Flavio

Basically yes, your clients are trying to find a netbios name server to resolve the windows server name. A WINS server would indeed be the solution.

I've long since forgotten what little Windows knowledge i had but i thought WINS had been replaced by AD now ?

Edit - you could actually forward these requests on to the other vlan if you wanted but it would be better to have a WINS/AD server setup to cut down on the broadcasts.

Jon

[Flavio Boniforti]

Hello Jon.

I got another suggestion from one of my colleagues, which I'll be trying out next week. In fact, WINS is adviced NOT to be used anymore. I will try putting DNS Servers into that PCs IP configuration and maybe that could solve my issue.

I'll be reporting back as soon as I get it to work.

Regards,

F.