I am still new to linux, (using CentOS 4), and am trying to view my shared folders on a networked XP machine using smb://<pc name>. It keeps saying that it doesn't exist, or that the connection has failed. I can connect/browse however using smb://<ip address>. With this I can view all the shares on my XP machine with no problems. Searching on google for quite a while now I can't find any reason why the pc name doesn't work whereas the IP does. I have changed the workgroup name in the samba server settings to the same as the windows network, but am probably missing something really obvious! Thanks ps, the XP machine I am using is the one in my specs

I suggest that you use IP address until we all get borked with IPv6. Be sure to read the official page here. http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/D... I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

Thanks for that, but I'm just wondering if it's a DNS problem somehow. I can't ping my XP machine from the CentOS one using its name, but I can from its IP. Adding this XP machine manually to the hosts in CentOS allows pinging/browsing by name, so this suggests it can't pick up the IP automatically. The DNS address is picked up automatically from the router (a DHCP server which also allocates IP addresses). The DNS must be working fine because I can use computer names (including lamp - the CentOS machine's name) in a ping from XP and that picks up the address correctly. So it seems the DNS works fine on the home network, CentOS has the right address for the DNS but just can't make use of it. Any ideas as to why this could be?

Kind of wrong. The doc's for Centos are based on more server or corporate setups. They don't assume a home user. A company would have a dns server most likely or have it part of a domain. Or even a wins server. You have only a dns client that gets info from your isp. They don't know about your lan. Try a hosts file edit to include the windows name to ip. See also the smb.conf file. Guess you could check that you have netbios over ip on the xp box. "Network browsing capabilities require NetBIOS over TCP/IP. NetBIOS-based networking uses broadcast (UDP) messaging to accomplish browse list management" I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.