R
Richard Bos
He doesn't know what he's talking about.It _is_ generally possible, on both Windows and Unixoids, _if_ you can
assume a friendly network.
[OT]
A *very* friendly network. An *extrodinarily* friendly network.
Depends on the OP's requirements, which I read differently than you.
Richard, have you ever actually -been- a network administrator
on a non-trivial network (say, more than 256 hosts) ?
No. *Counts* About a hundred.
I have,
and I was pretty good at it -- but there were times when it would
take weeks or months to track down certain devices that would appear
for short times and then disappear, even though we were using
"fully managed" network infrastructure.
Yehess... but then, IME, you're talking about perhaps a laptop, perhaps
a built-in print server that disappears when the printer is turned off,
perhaps just a flaky machine.
The point being that unless you have full complete taps on all of your
switches, you -cannot- identify all the "servers and computers" on a
network (the first thing requested by the original poster)
But not all.
with full taps, you might not be able to locate some devices that seem
to appear.
Physically locating them is a wildly different matter, of course.
The OP's task would be considerably easier if the OP restricted themselves
to computers that announce themselves on the local network,
Well, there's the point - he restricted himself to computers he can
access, and get a list of files from. That essentially narrows it down
to reliable servers and ditto workstations with file sharing turned on.
Devices that appear and disappear are not what he's after.
Richard