The
short answer would be yes, but there are lots and lots of details.
Now
that your GRE tunnel is up and running, switch your thinking
to
look
at it from Windows' point of view. From Windows' point of
view,
the
GRE tunnel is really a router. So you have LAN A connected
to
a
router, across a WAN, to LAN B. Your Windows PCs have
no
clue
that there is a GRE tunnel in-between. All they know is,
their
default gateway is the internal IP address of the firewall/router
you
set
up. Well, maybe not their default gateway, but at least they
have a
route to the LAN on the other side of the tunnel.
So
what do we need with Windows so that PCs in LAN A can
browse
(Network Neighborhood) shares offered by computers in
LAN
B? Assuming Windows 9x, we need a way for
NetBIOS name
resolution that doesn't depend on broadcasts, so that means
you'll
need a
WINS server in both LAN A and LAN B. You'll want to set
up the
WINS servers as push/pull replication partners so they both
have
up to date copies of which systems are where. And you'll
need
to set
up your PCs as NBT node type 8 (I think). This is the
hybrid,
where
PCs first try to resolve names by asking a WINs server and
then
try a
broadcast if that doesn't work.
You
could also use local lmhosts files for NetBIOS name
resolution,
but
let's not even go there.
If you
have a Win2000 domain and all Win2000 clients, then the
rules
are
different. In this case, you'll need DNS servers instead of
WINS
servers.
Conceptually, the point is, you need some way to do name
resolution
on
both ends of your tunnel to make this work.
You
will want to set up some kind of Win NT or Win 2000 domain
structure that makes sense, or you will want some kind of
workgroup structure that makes sense. So let's say the PCs
in
LAN A
are all members of a workgroup named LANAWG. If you
make a
PC in LAN B a member of the LANAWG workgroup, and
you
have name resolution that works, then that LAN B PC should
be
able to browse its Network Neighborhood and see the shares
offered by PCs in the LANAWG workgroup, no matter which
side
of the
tunnel they are on.
This
all assumes that the Windows PCs do their jobs properly.
- Greg
Scott
Hello everyone. is it possible to browse the
network neigborhood if i tunnel to a remote site ? if its possible how?
Best regards,
Glynn