Seems that people are having issues with browsing windows networks via the Panther Finder. Well I was anyway. The symptoms were that limited or no servers were being listed in the Network "directory" and sometimes servers where not characterised into workgroups (i.e. they all appeared in the Network root directory).
Using the built in SAMBA tools, I was able to isolate the problem: The Domain Master Browser (DMB) wasn't responding properly. Why this was, I'm unshure. The DMB is required for browsing of Windows networks, and is either specified by a network admin or is automatically selected by computers on the network. Watching a few processes from the terminal, I noticed that a smbclient process (using the IP of the DMB as an argument) was attempting to talk to the DMB (Panther uses smbclient and scripts to do this). The process was blocked until the DMB responded, which it didn't, thus the corresponding folders and icons the Network directory where not updated by the Finder, and the loss of network browsing.
The DMB for a workgroup can be found using the command nmblookup -M WORKGROUP, where WORKGROUP is the workgroup your Mac is in.
The solutions:
smbcontrol nmbd force-election
This should fix the problem.
There are two files used in Panther for this. On located at /etc/smb.conf and the other in /var/run/smbbrowsing.conf. These files vary slightly, however, both are altered by using the Directory Access app (used when you want to change work groups, located in Utilities).
So in my particular situation, I wanted the Mac to take control and become the undisputed DMB of my home network . The steps performed were:
domain master = yes preferred master = yes local master = yes os level = 255just below the line [global] in BOTH /etc/smb.conf AND /var/run/smbbrowsing.conf using vi or pico or some other editor. You will need super user privileges (sudo). Make backups just in case!!
smbcontrol nmbd force-electionThis forces the Windows network to look for a new DMB (hopefully your Mac!).
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20031113060738627