FQDN & NetBIOS ?????

This has been puzzling me for quite a in the last few days

when i was taught how to create DNS last year, i'd just create install and configure it. no complaints.

then had a new teacher (previous one left). he's more "fully" into networking, mostly serious everyday.

this teacher went off at me, complaining it's not fully qualified etc etc. when everthing was working. he said "If i disabled netBIOS it will not work." and i said "don't disable it and who disables it anyway?" got more upset, thinking i was joking (well, i was really but he didn't take it that way).

so... i learnt how to do it by watching a few people who "seemed to understand everything and knew what they were doing.", enter suffix (at my computer), disable netbios (when configuring NIC)

i just want to know, whats the big deal? as long as DNS is working...right? - confused potential network professional (lol)[/i]

Your teacher is right. DNS is not NetBIOS and vice versa! Windows may use netbios as well for name resolution, but that does not make it a proper solution. The standard for name service is DNS, netbios is a very general protocol that does many things, including providing very limited name services, but none that good. Also it has had a very bad history of security, which comes at no surprise considering that it is a very old protocol designed for small networks, which had its life extended by "feature-injections" on top of it, in order to be of some use to later demands, instead of being redesigned/replaced.

The basic reasons for why using netbios for name resolution is not proper, is that:
1) NetBIOS provides very limited features for name service
2) NetBIOS implementations in the various windows versions has been found to have dozens of problems (mostly about security)
3) NetBIOS is considered deprecated at most platforms and, for most of it's applications, ithas been replaced at windows as well (the last platform that actively supported it as far as I know).
4) Because of the previous, you would make things for users of non-windows platforms unnecessarily complicated

I suggest googling for the specifics of NetBIOS and DNS, if you want more details on the above. You can read an overview of both procols at the WikiPedia for start:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBIOS
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_system

cheers

A Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) is kind of like stating your full name instead of just your first name. You could call yourself "Bob", but there are millions of Bobs out there, however there is only one "Bob Somebody" (for the sake of this explanation). So in DNS, you can have several devices named "Bob" but only one that is bob.somebody.net., or one that is bob.newpeople.somebody.net.com., etc. In a little more technical terms, the FQDN is the absolute part of the hierarchy that a device is located. Also notice that there's a period at the very end of the name. That is an easy way to spot that it's a FQDN, basically says "This is the end!" just like the period at the end of this sentence.

Also notice that there's a period at the very end of the name. That is an easy way to spot that it's a FQDN, basically says "This is the end!" just like the period at the end of this sentence.

I'm no expert in anything, but isn't the Period at the end represent the Root Domain from where the Process of Name to IP Resolution *begins*, by traversing from Right to Left?

If the OP is interested, you can check out these RFC's

www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1034.txt?number=1034
www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1035.txt?number=1035

FallenZer0

OK, you got me on a technicality, Fallen Zero. I was trying to relate it to a sentence, but maybe that's not the best example. I guess I think of it as I'm not looking for a higher level once I see the period on the FQDN, because I've reached the end of what I'm looking for. Besides, I read from left to right.