Good Info for anyone running mixed OS networks with Windows is in the mix. I spent a good 12 hrs chasing a strange problem.
For Windows - *nix Samba network, the Master Browser is chosen by an "election" where devices get rank by their OS version and settings. Everything works great in a simple Windows network. A problem shows up when a Windows Domain Controller is outranked by another non-windows device. A DC wants to be the master browser, but I had some Linux SAMBA devices with higher OsLevel than my Windows 2003 DC. I had continuous broadcast storms with never ending "elections" and it was killing browsing on my whole network, not to mention performance. The finial fix was to go into the SAMBA devices and lower the OsLevel under 32. That is in the "smb.conf" file. On Ubuntu you can edit and restart SAMBA on a SME - esmith you have to modify the templates and expand. AFTER getting the settings for OS level UNDER the level of my DC everything is again working. What made this especially hard for me to grasp was the devices were not new and had been on the network for years. It only caused a problem when I removed the last Windows 2000 DC from the network and then all my troubles began. Thanks to all the Geeks how gave me input. -- Hope this might save someone else hours of frustration. Terry
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