Knowledge Base

The configuration process uses the NetBIOS interface. Each station is defined by a unique name called a NetBIOS name.

In a multi-station configuration, each station has an associated name such as STATION1. (A station can be a client, a server or both client and server).

• For a server connection, the associated NetBIOS name has the format STATION1S0.
• For a client connection, the associated NetBIOS name has the format STATION1C0.

The value 0 in S0 and C0 represents the network card number (default 0).

PcVue’s LAN communication uses Broadcast messages. Each message from a station to another station is broadcast on the LAN network. Every station connected to the same sub-network receives the message. Only the addressed station replies.

By default, stations connected to a different sub-network do not receive the messages. Nevertheless, message exchanges between different sub-networks are possible with an additional configuration file. It consists of a table that associates each NetBIOS name with an IP address.

In a client/server relationship, the client always initiates the communication. Once the client initialises the link between two stations, the server knows the path to reach the client.

In the table NetBIOS names.IP address, only the server’s NetBIOS name is necessary. In the example, it is STATION1S0.

A way of doing this is to define the table in a file called LMHOSTS.

Using LMHOST.SYS under Windows XP, 2000 and NT 4.0.

1. Open the Windows Control Panel and open the Network box.
2. Select the Protocol tab. Select TCP/IP protocol and then select the Properties button to open a TCP/IP Properties box.
3. Select the WINS tab and select the option Activate LMHOSTS.
4. Create a text file called LMHOSTS in the folder ‘Etc’ (for Windows XP and 2000: in C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\; for Windows NT: in WINNT\System32\Drivers\).

The syntax of the file is as follows: IP Address NetBIOS name.

Notes

• This configuration has to be applied on each station using a client connection.
• A sample file comes with NT, called LMHOSTS.SAM.
• It is necessary to use uppercase for the names in LMHOSTS and the Supervisor configuration (STATION.DAT)
• As the LMHOSTS file contains fixed addresses, it does not work if you are using the DHCP server for IP addresses.

Example

With these parameters:

On the server station, LMHOSTS would contain:

10.10.0.100 SERVERS0
10.10.0.100 SERVERC0

On the client station, LMHOSTS would contain:

10.10.0.101 CLIENTS0
10.10.0.101 CLIENTC0

For ease of configuration, it is recommended that you create one LMHOSTS file which contains all of the lines. You can then copy this file to all of the stations.

A combined LMHOSTS file would contain:

10.10.0.100 SERVERS0
10.10.0.100 SERVERC0
10.10.0.101 CLIENTS0
10.10.0.101 CLIENTC0

If the stations are connected to different subnets, the file HOSTS (without extension) also has to be applied and should contain the same as LMHOSTS.

How to test connections

You may use the PING command to perform a basic test, from the MSDOS Prompt window.

On the client station use these commands:

PING <server IP address>
PING <server NETBIOS name>

Each command should give a PING answer as follows:

answer <IP address> : byte = 32 time < 10ms TTL=128