RAS Servers Using TCP/IP and Dynamic Addresses Need WINS

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, and 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, and 4.0

SUMMARY

When two RAS servers dial each other with TCP/IP as the protocol, and use dynamic IP addressing, WINS must be used for them to resolve each other's NetBIOS names. LMHOSTS or HOSTS file entries will not be sufficient, because of the dynamic IP addresses.

MORE INFORMATION

If server A dials server B, its WAN interface is assigned an IP address by server B. This IP address will come from the pool that server B provides. If server B dials server A, its WAN interface will be assigned an IP address from the pool provided by server A. The IP address associated with a given WAN interface is not always the same, so static HOSTS or LMHOSTS files are not adequate for name resolution.

If both of the RAS servers are using WINS, they will register their names in their respective WINS databases at startup. When a remote client (in this case the other RAS server) dials in, it can be assigned an IP address and a WINS server address, which are the same ones used by the "local" RAS server. The remote client will then register its name in the WINS database, and it will also send name queries to the WINS server. Both servers will be able to resolve each other's names.

Computers running Microsoft Exchange Server with RAS installed may be set up to dial each other, and will require the use of WINS as described above, or the use of another dialup protocol, such as NetBEUI.

For additional information on using NetBEUI as the dialup protocol between two Windows NT 4.0 RAS servers, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   ARTICLE-ID: Q159352
   TITLE     : RPC over NetBIOS programs can't call from server to RAS
               client