WINS Behavior on a Multihomed System

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 3.5
• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 3.5

SUMMARY

Microsoft NT Server version 3.5 allows multiple network cards to bind to the NetBT (NetBIOS over TCP/IP). However, the WINS service can only bind to one network card. By default, the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) service will bind to the first adapter bound with NetBT. As a result, when you configure WINS client addresses, be sure to specify the IP address of the adapter and not another IP address such as that of an adapter that might be on the same subnet as the client.

MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft does not recommend that the WINS service run on a computer with two or more network cards (multihomed) on disjoint networks. MS-DOS clients that query WINS may not be able to reach computers with multiple network cards that straddle disjoint networks due to the fact that MS-DOS clients always pick the first IP address supplied by the WINS server. The MS-DOS client may fail to connect to that computer because it may be using one of the "unreachable" addresses supplied by the WINS server. However, you can configure a multihomed computer to register with different WINS servers for each adapter card. If the multihomed computer straddles two disjoint networks, the computers on either side would use the WINS server on their network to resolve names. Then the WINS server would return only the IP address registered on the requesting clients' network.