Discovering the Local Network

As mentioned previously, a client explores the local network by locating the workgroup master browser and querying it for information. This is equivalent to the Windows concept of Network Neighborhood. The next section describes how to use nmblookup to find the name of the master browser, and the following section shows how to list the shares on that machine.

Now you may be saying, "We don't want the shares, just the computers!" And you would be right. But the same program that lists shares on a particular machine will also display the machines in the local workgroup. Technically, if you already know the name of one machine in the network, you don't even need to know the master browser ”you can just request the shares from the one you know and find the machines on the network as a convenient side effect of the way the Samba tools work. So read on.