Network Neighborhood browsing (was Re: [pptp-server] Connected, but not browsing.)

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

matthewr at moreton.com.au (Matthew Ramsay) writes:

> >> Q. will these packets make it down the VPN tunnel to the poptop
> >> server? My initial thoughts are *no*. I will do some tests on this
> >> in a few days.
> >
> >Correct.
> 
> correct that it will make it, or correct that it wont?

Your original statement is correct; the broadcast packets will not
make it through the PPP tunnel.

At least, I am pretty sure that is the case :-).

> A number of replies mention a wins server.. so I'm going to follow
> this up closely.. Is there any light-weight wins servers out there?
> I had a quick look around but couldn't find any. Samba is too huge
> for my purposes (ie. I may hack one together).
> 
> Comments?

I have no idea how hard it would be.  I concede that Samba is overkill
for this purpose, but it is free and it does work.  The name service
part lives in its own daemon (nmbd); perhaps you could just run
that with a minimal smb.conf...

 - Pat