Problem with Linux PC getting at NT WINS server

["Moore, Paul" <Paul.Moore@uk.origin-it.com>]

Hi,
I have a Debian laptop (2.1r2 slink, with kernel 2.2.14 and the latest
DHCPCD, PCMCIA and netbase packages) which I'm connecting to my company
network - which is basically NT/Windows based.

The basic connection is fine, I get an IP address and access to the DNS
nameservers and network via DHCP.

However, most of the network runs (somehow) on WINS. That is, the "official"
name of a network client is something like
DHCPPC-245-118.rundc.uk.origin-it.com. The hostname is a DHCP-generated
value, which is not static. The "normal" name for a PC is something like
UKDCW3920 [.rundc...], which is managed via WINS/NMBD services hosted on the
same machines as the DNS nameservers.

I have two problems on the Linux box.

1. The box cannot "see" these netbios names for other machines on the LAN. I
can ping machines with static IP addresses by name, as (I guess) the names
are resolved via DNS. I can also ping dynamic IP machines via their
DHCPPC-names. But I can't ping using the netbios name (which I guess is
resolved via the WINS server)

2. The box does not publish *its* netbios name correctly. I can ping from an
NT box to ukrup480 (the Linux machine's name) but it resolves the IP address
as 127.0.0.1 - obviously not right. So the WINS server seems to know about
ukrup480, but gets its IP address wrong...

I have installed SMB networking in the Kernel and the SAMBA client software.
My smb.conf file is basically as it came, with the following changes:

    wins support = no
    wins server = <IP addr>
    os level = 0
    domain master = no
    local master = no
    preferred master = no

As far as I can tell looking at the documentation, there's nothing else
which needs changing. But I'm definitely NOT an expert in this - it's all
"magic" which just works on the NT machines.

Can anybody tell me what I might need to do to get this working?

Thanks for any help,
Paul Moore.