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I have a Cisco RV180 VPN Firewall Router and I have QuickVPN and PPTP working. However, I am not able to get NetBIOS working so that I can access everything via NAMES or get the systems to show up under the networking area.

Is there a secret to getting NetBIOS to work and everything accessible by names?

Do I need to setup a WINS Service or is there a better way then using WINS?

Would it work through IPSec? Or does NetBIOS not work with VPNS at all?

EDIT: Basically, I cam trying to access machines via their names for when laptops leave the office. Right now everything is setup to use machine names. The VPN connects to the same local subnet 192.168.50.x if that matters.

Jason
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NetBIOS is broadcast based.

The purpose of WINS is to fascilitate NetBIOS name resolution over broadcast domain boundaries.

A VPN router (or any router) is a broadcast domain boundary.

Yes, WINS is a necessity in a routed environment if NetBIOS is a requirement.

NetBIOS has been obsoleted by DNS for years however, as it scales poorly (broadcast based, flat namespace). Migrate away from NetBIOS if at all an option.

ErikE
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As ErikE has already mentioned, NetBIOS is a broadcast protocol, what this means in reality is that all of the machines on your local network shout there details to each other when they are on the local network so that all of the hosts know who there neighbours are and what services they can provide.

To be clear this is not an issue because you are attempting to access these devices over a VPN but because you are no longer on the same local network. Exactly the same symptoms would occur if you were to access them from an alternate local subnet.

Now the good news. NetBIOS as I mentioned is used for advertising Servers and Services, however you can go looking. This means you can use IP addresses to connect to those machines, or you can preload what's known as a lmhosts file on your machine which holds the name and ip address information for these machines locally on your machine.

You don't mention in your question what exactly you're trying to achieve but if you would take the question back a step and explain what you're trying to achieve I can probably offer up some options as to resolve your issue.

user201035
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  • The lmhosts file has a similar function in a NetBIOS/WINS network as the hosts file in a DNS network. It doesn't scale even if it can be useful on occasion. In terms of local problem solving and quick fix it can be very convenient, in terms of network design it is a good way of wasting a lot of time to no end. For fqdn name resolution one centralises with dns, for netbios name resolution one centralises with wins. – ErikE Nov 30 '13 at 10:52