Python and Netbios

Question

I have been toying with a few ideas and would like to use Netbios to do some checks on the network. So after some research decided pysmb's nmb.Netbios was a good place to start.

I have constructed a simple queryName function that I was hoping would return an ip address. But it seems after checking some wireshark pcap dumps it isnt even broadcasting.

Ive found an example in the pysmb docs but that doesnt seem to broadcast either. Below is my test function, any pointers would be appreciated.

from nmb.NetBIOS import NetBIOS

def queryNam(name):
    n = NetBIOS(broadcast=True, listen_port=0)
    ip = n.queryName(name, timeout=30)
    return ip

name = "Computer-Name"
ip = queryNam(name)
print ip

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 20 '15 at 12:46

I worked out the issue myself. Initially I wasnt using the correct computername as NetBios Broadcasts seem to broadcast the name in uppercase. I was presenting a lowercase so the system was not responding.

So supplying the value in uppercase resolved the problem. (Even though a hostname check on the client showed an Uppercase followed by lowercase characters.

Python and Netbios

1 Answers1