Yes, but most people who have done it have had their share of headaches. Spanning multiple subnets was not part of the initial design of Windows NT 3.5 or Windows for Workgroups. As a result, a Windows domain that spans two or more subnets is, in reality, the "gluing" together of two or more workgroups that share an identical name. The good news is that you can still use a primary domain controller to control authentication across each of the subnets. The bad news is that things are not as simple with browsing.
As mentioned previously, each subnet must have its own local master browser. When a Windows domain spans multiple subnets, a system administrator will have to assign one of the machines as the
domain master browser. The domain master browser will keep a browse list for the entire Windows domain. This browse list is created by periodically synchronizing the browse lists of each of the local master browsers with the browse list of the domain master browser. After the synchronization, the local master browser and the domain master browser should contain identical entries. See
Figure 1.14 for an illustration.
Sound good? Well, it's not quite nirvana for the following reasons:
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If it exists, a primary domain controller always plays the role of the domain master browser. By Microsoft design, the two always share the NetBIOS resource type <1B>, and (unfortunately) cannot be separated.
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Windows 95/98 machines cannot become
or
even contact a domain master browser. The Samba group feels that this is a marketing decision from Microsoft that forces customers to have at least one Windows NT workstation (or Samba server) on each subnet of a multi-subnet workgroup.
Each subnet's local master browser continues to maintain the browse list for its subnet, for which it becomes authoritative. So if a computer wants to see a list of servers within its own subnet, the local master browser of that subnet will be queried. If a computer wants to see a list of servers outside the subnet, it can still go only as far as the local master browser. This works because, at appointed intervals, the authoritative browse list of a subnet's local master browser is synchronized with the domain master browser, which is synchronized with the local master browser of the other subnets in the domain. This is called
browse list propagation.
Samba can act as a domain master browser on a Windows domain if required. In addition, it can also act as a local master browser for a Windows subnet, synchronizing its browse list with the domain master browser.
