The Windows Internet Name Service

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The Windows Internet Name Service

The Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) provides name registration, renewal, release, and resolution services for NetBIOS names and IP addresses. It is implemented as an extension of RFCs 1001 and 1002.

A WINS server maintains a dynamic database linking NetBIOS names to IP addresses. The database is dynamic because each name registration has a time to live value—after its time to live has expired, the record is discarded from the database. The WINS server receives registration, renewal, and release requests from WINS clients, and updates its database based on this information. Name resolution queries from WINS clients are resolved using this database.

Using the WINS server for name registration, renewal, release, and resolution services provides a marked improvement over using broadcast messages or static mappings for these services. In the case of broadcast messages, rather than each computer sending a broadcast to all clients on its subnet for every name registration, each computer sends a unicast message to the WINS server.

The same applies for name queries: rather than sending a broadcast message to all clients on its subnet, a WINS client sends a unicast message directly to the WINS server. For networks using static mappings, such as an LMHOSTS file, each computer has a fixed list of NetBIOS names and IP addresses, which can become difficult to manage—and impossible to manage when using dynamic IP address assignments, such as environments using DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol). See Chapter 6 for more information on DHCP.

A broadcast message is a TCP/IP packet sent from one computer to every other computer on a subnet. A unicast message is a TCP/IP packet sent from one computer directly to another computer.

The following section looks at how WINS works, and details the services that a WINS server provides to WINS clients.

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