DNS on Windows 2000, Second Edition

WINS Linkage

Our next topic requires a short detour into the world of Microsoft networking. Networks based on NetBT (NetBIOS over TCP) need to perform name resolution, too: hosts need a way to map NetBIOS names^[34] to IP addresses. The way this name resolution works has evolved over time. In the early days, hosts broadcasted a query on the LAN to resolve a NetBIOS name. This forced all hosts to listen to every broadcast. Since broadcasts don’t leave the local LAN, this method didn’t allow name resolution beyond the local subnet. The next evolutionary step was the LMHOSTS file, which is just a list of NetBIOS names and IP addresses. Every host needed an LMHOSTS file to resolve names beyond the local subnet. This model didn’t scale very well, either: it was tough to keep the LMHOSTS files up-to-date and distribute them. And the introduction of the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) essentially made basing a network’s NetBIOS name resolution on LMHOSTS files impossible.

A detailed description of DHCP is beyond the scope of this book,^[35] but suffice it to say that DHCP eliminates the requirement of configuring a static IP address on every one of your hosts. If those hosts support DHCP, they can contact a DHCP server when they boot to obtain an IP address and other configuration parameters, such as the IP addresses of the default router, name servers, and WINS servers.

WINS, which stands for Windows Internet Naming Service, is a Microsoft invention introduced in Windows ...