WINS: Check missing records

[tvbruwae]

Hi

We will be migrating our PC's from two existing WINS servers to a couple of new ones. While doing so, we do not want to replicate all existing WINS records to the new servers. Instead, we would insert only a few static records which we are sure to be needed (applications that do not work over DNS) and wish to log any other WINS request. Whenever a PC asks WINS for a record that does not exist, we wish to enter it in DNS instead (with a default domain name suffix, resolving should work in most cases). If resolving still doesn't work then we have to add the WINS record.

The question is: can we somehow log what records are asked to the WINS server and that are not in its DB?

 

[ShackDaddy]

Really, the best way would be to go into the WINS Admin, get properties on the name of the new server, go to the Advanced tab and choose the Log Detailed Events option. That should capture the negative queries. You wouldn't want to leave it on for too long, since it's superverbose.

Another way, for complicated people, would be to use a packet sniffer and filter by WINS requests. The ones that return a no-record will have unique characteristics that can be filtered for.

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting

 

[tvbruwae]

Hi

Thanks for the reply!

We already tried it the easy way, but it would appear that log entries are only made for WINS database events, not for things like failed queries. Too bad, because this indeed seemed a fair option.

The second approach does work, but it will need a lot of scripting to filter the things we need from the log files. Also we're hoping that we can filter on UDP-137 without logging all the WINS registration requests from the PC's..