This chapter contains the following sections:
Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) for Advanced Server provides a Windows NT compatible, replicated, dynamic database for registering and querying NetBIOS computer name-to-IP address mappings in a routed network environment. Advanced Server WINS is designed to solve the problems that occur with name resolution in complex internetworks. It extends Advanced Server support from the local area network (LAN) to wide area network (WAN) and dial-up network environments.
Advanced Server WINS reduces the use of local broadcast messages for name resolution and allows users to locate systems easily on remote networks. And, when dynamic addressing through DHCP results in new IP addresses for computers that move between subnets, the changes are updated automatically in the WINS database. Neither the user nor the administrator needs to make changes manually.
The WINS protocol is based on and is compatible with the protocols defined for NBNS in RFCs 1001 and 1002. It therefore is interoperable with other implementations of these RFCs. WINS for Advanced Server is fully compatible with Microsoft WINS client implementations including Microsoft TCP/IP-32 for Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95, Windows NT Workstation, Windows NT Server, and the Microsoft Network Client, Version 3.0.
Advanced Server WINS is fully interoperable with WINS for Windows NT Server. It can replicate name databases with other Advanced Server WINS computers, and with WINS for Windows NT systems.
Advanced Server WINS is managed by the same Windows NT-based tool that is used to manage WINS for Windows NT. This allows both Advanced Server-based and Windows NT-based WINS servers to be managed from a single administrative tool on a single computer in the network.
This chapter describes how to configure and administer WINS on a computer running Advanced Server.
Advanced Server WINS with TCP/IP requires a unique IP address and computer name for each computer on the network. Although programs use IP addresses to connect computers, administrators use "friendly" names to connect them. As a result, TCP/IP internetworks require a name resolution service that converts computer names to IP addresses and IP addresses to computer names.
An IP address is the unique address by which all other TCP/IP devices on the internetwork recognize that computer. For TCP/IP and the Internet, the computer name is the globally known system name, plus a Domain Name System (DNS) domain name. (On the local network, the computer name is the name that was supplied either during Advanced Server or Windows NT setup.) To ensure that both names and IP addresses are unique, a computer using NetBIOS over TCP/IP registers its name and IP address on the network during system startup.
This section discusses the following topics:
