nmbd [-D] [-a] [-o] [-h] [-V] [-H lmhosts file] [-d debuglevel] [-l log file basename] [-n primary NetBIOS name] [-p port number] [-s configuration file]
This program is part of the Samba suite.
nmbd is a server that understands and can reply to NetBIOS over IP name service requests, like those produced by SMBD/CIFS clients such as Windows 95/98, Windows NT and LanManager clients. It also participates in the browsing protocols which make up the Windows "Network Neighborhood" view.
SMB/CIFS clients, when they start up, may wish to locate an SMB/CIFS server. That is, they wish to know what IP number a specified host is using.
Amongst other services, nmbd will listen for such requests, and if its own NetBIOS name is specified it will respond with the IP number of the host it is running on. Its "own NetBIOS name" is by default the primary DNS name of the host it is running on, but this can be overridden with the -n option (see OPTIONS below). Thus nmbd will reply to broadcast queries for its own name(s). Additional names for nmbd to respond on can be set via parameters in the smb.conf(5) configuration file.
nmbd can also be used as a WINS (Windows Internet Name Server) server. What this basically means is that it will act as a WINS database server, creating a database from name registration requests that it receives and replying to queries from clients for these names.
In addition, nmbd can act as a WINS proxy, relaying broadcast queries from clients that do not understand how to talk the WINS protocol to a WIN server.
If the server is to be run by the inetd meta-daemon, this file must contain suitable startup information for the meta-daemon.
(or whatever initialization script your system uses).
If running the server as a daemon at startup, this file will need to contain an appropriate startup sequence for the server.
This is the default location of the smb.conf server configuration file. Other common places that systems install this file are /usr/samba/lib/smb.conf and /etc/smb.conf.
When run as a WINS server (see the wins support parameter in the smb.conf (5) man page), nmbd will store the WINS database in the file wins.dat in the var/locks directory configured under wherever Samba was configured to install itself.
If nmbd is acting as a browse master (see the local master parameter in the smb.conf (5) man page), nmbd will store the browsing database in the file browse.dat in the var/locks directory configured under wherever Samba was configured to install itself.
To shut down an nmbd process it is recommended that SIGKILL (-9) NOT be used, except as a last resort, as this may leave the name database in an inconsistent state. The correct way to terminate nmbd is to send it a SIGTERM (-15) signal and wait for it to die on its own.
nmbd will accept SIGHUP, which will cause it to dump out it\'s namelists into the file namelist.debug in the /usr/local/samba/var/locks directory (or the var/locks directory configured under wherever Samba was configured to install itself). This will also cause nmbd to dump out it\'s server database in the log.nmb file. In addition, the debug log level of nmbd may be raised by sending it a SIGUSR1 (kill -USR1 <nmbd-pid>) and lowered by sending it a SIGUSR2 (kill -USR2 <nmbd-pid>). This is to allow transient problems to be diagnosed, whilst still running at a normally low log level.
This man page is correct for version 2.0 of the Samba suite.
inetd (8), smbd (8), smb.conf (5), smbclient (1), testparm (1), testprns (1), and the Internet RFC\'s rfc1001.txt, rfc1002.txt. In addition the CIFS (formerly SMB) specification is available as a link from the Web page : http://samba.org/cifs/.
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell samba@samba.org. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.
The original Samba man pages were written by Karl Auer. The man page sources were converted to YODL format (another excellent piece of Open Source software, available at ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/) and updated for the Samba2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. samba@samba.org.
See samba (7) to find out how to get a full list of contributors and details on how to submit bug reports, comments etc.