Re: Disabling WINS/NetBIOS name resolution in CE 4.1

From: George McCollister (georgem_at_novatech-llc.com)
Date: 09/16/04 

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:27:36 -0500

Corey Burke [MS] wrote:
> Unfortunately I don't think there is any way to disable or remove WINS as
> the code that handles WINS is shared with that which handles DNS.
>
> Is there something specific that bothers you about the WINS broadcasts? If
> so, then maybe we can either address that issue or if there is no
> workaround, consider changing the OS for a future release.
>
> - Corey Burke
> "Eternal Bringer of the Bad News"
> Windows CE Networking QA
>

Our devices are being deployed in remote sites which often have very
limited bandwidth. In one case our 33.6Kbps dialup modem is only
connecting at 16.8Kbps due to a poor quality line. In addition to the
poor bandwidth, TCP/IP connections are randomly being dropped. Removing
these broadcasts would probably increase the stability of our TCP/IP
connection since it would not have to share the line with any other traffic.

In some cases the network connection is over a cellular link which
usually means bandwidth of less than 9600bps. Additionally some cellular
packet data systems charge you per packet, which means our device could
not be used with these systems without incurring our customers
considerable extra cost.

It has also been a problem from a professional stand point. A customer
will install the device in their system, then call several days later
saying something like "I put a sniffer on my network to debug some
problems with another device and I just happened to notice that your
device was spewing these netbios name requests." This will usually be
followed by some remark questioning quality/security of a windows based
embedded network device.

Honestly in most cases people are not using any type of name resolution
at all. These devices are configured once, usually with static ip
addresses and are hopefully never touched again. In these cases
disabling name resolution entirely would be acceptable if it would stop
the netbios broadcasts. Can this be accomplished?

The message that we are seeing time and time again is shown by ethereal
as the following:

No. Time Source Destination Protocol
Info src port
dest port
      13 12.478446 192.168.101.151 192.168.101.255 NBNS
   Name query NB ??E??<00> 1038
     137

Frame 13 (92 bytes on wire, 92 bytes captured)
Ethernet II, Src: 00:01:45:00:6c:1e, Dst: ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
Internet Protocol, Src Addr: 192.168.101.151 (192.168.101.151), Dst
Addr: 192.168.101.255 (192.168.101.255)
User Datagram Protocol, Src Port: 1038 (1038), Dst Port: netbios-ns (137)
     Source port: 1038 (1038)
     Destination port: netbios-ns (137)
     Length: 58
     Checksum: 0x3775 (correct)
NetBIOS Name Service

0000 ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 01 45 00 6c 1e 08 00 45 00 ........E.l...E.
0010 00 4e 00 14 00 00 80 11 ed a3 c0 a8 65 97 c0 a8 .N..........e...
0020 65 ff 04 0e 00 89 00 3a 37 75 00 1c 01 10 00 01 e......:7u......
0030 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 44 50 44 50 45 46 44 50 44 ...... DPDPEFDPD
0040 50 43 41 43 41 43 41 43 41 43 41 43 41 43 41 43 PCACACACACACACAC
0050 41 43 41 43 41 41 41 00 00 20 00 01 ACACAAA.. ..

I don't believe our code (in most situations) is doing any name lookups.
Will these messages always be generated, or are they being initiated by
some type of lookup request?

Thanks,
George McCollister

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Printer Name invalid / Incorrect
    ... Make sure the XP firewall is off and NetBIOS ... is bound to the connection on each. ... How Browsing a Wide Area Network Works ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.setup_deployment)
  • Re: PPTP VPN Problem (cant connect to resources)...
    ... share using the server netbios name not the ip (yeah I know would be nice if ... You can either install a WINS server on your ... If the connection progress gets hung up trying to verify ... network to my desktop.Locally everything ...
    (microsoft.public.pocketpc)
  • Re: Repost: VPN and user authentication
    ... connection if you have all of the necessary ingredients for NetBIOS ... The new Global VPN client, because it allows DHCP-based connections, ... I can browse the entire network via NETBIOS ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.security)
  • RE: Problems with Permissions
    ... And SBS server is only take ... the role of an internal server. ... they are all configured to connected to internal network. ... g. Run the Configure Email and Internet Connection Wizard on SBS server. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Computer \computername cannot be managed because it is not running Windows NT
    ... We were using NetBIOS including WINS, ... In my opinion disabling NBT does little to nothing to improve network ... disabling 'NetBIOS over TCP/IP' and therefore loosing 'My Network ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)