Red Hat Knowledgebase

A system becomes the local master browser by holding a browsing election on the local subnet. Browsing elections can be held at any time. Samba can rig the elections so the outcome is such that you are always the local master browser. A master browser maintains a browse list which contains all the currently active machines on a subnet.

Below are the election options that are needed in the global section of the smb.conf file that will always make this server the local master browser.

Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf

[global] #Browsing election options os level = 65 local master = yes

The os level option dictates the operating system level at which Samba will masquerade during a browser election. If you wish to have Samba win an election and become the master browser, you set the os level above that of the operating system on your network with the highest current value.

The os level of 65 is to ensure the Samba server becomes the local master browser on a given subnet. If there are Microsoft machines on the subnet trying to be local master browsers an os level of 34 will beat them in an election however, if there are other Samba servers on the subnet a value of 65 will ensure your server is elected the local master browser.

Election are decided in the following order:

1. The machine with the highest operating system value wins the election
   
   
2. If there is a tie, the machine with the option below wins the election
   
   

   [global] preferred master = yes




3. If there is still a tie then the machine that has been online the longest wins the election
   
   
4. Finally, if there is still a tie the server that comes first alphabetically will win the election

For further information on what level other operating systems are please refer to http://www.faqs.org/docs/samba/ch07.html