lmhosts - Man Page

The Samba NetBIOS hosts file

Synopsis

lmhosts is the samba(7) NetBIOS name to IP address mapping file​.

Description

This file is part of the samba(7) suite​.

lmhosts is the Samba NetBIOS name to IP address mapping file​. It is very similar to the /etc/hosts file format, except that the hostname component must correspond to the NetBIOS naming format​.

File Format

It is an ASCII file containing one line for NetBIOS name​. The two fields on each line are separated from each other by white space​. Any entry beginning with '#' is ignored​. Each line in the lmhosts file contains the following information:

  • IP Address - in dotted decimal format​.
  • NetBIOS Name - This name format is a maximum fifteen character host name, with an optional trailing '#' character followed by the NetBIOS name type as two hexadecimal digits​.

    If the trailing '#' is omitted then the given IP address will be returned for all names that match the given name, whatever the NetBIOS name type in the lookup​.

An example follows:

#
# Sample Samba lmhosts file​.
#
192​.9​.200​.1	TESTPC
192​.9​.200​.20	NTSERVER#20
192​.9​.200​.21	SAMBASERVER

Contains three IP to NetBIOS name mappings​. The first and third will be returned for any queries for the names "TESTPC" and "SAMBASERVER" respectively, whatever the type component of the NetBIOS name requested​.

The second mapping will be returned only when the "0x20" name type for a name "NTSERVER" is queried​. Any other name type will not be resolved​.

The default location of the lmhosts file is in the same directory as the smb.conf(5) file​.

Files

lmhosts is loaded from the configuration directory​. This is usually /etc/samba or /usr/local/samba/lib​.

Version

This man page is part of version 4​.25​.0 of the Samba suite​.

See Also

smbclient(1), smb.conf(5), and smbpasswd(8)

Author

The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew Tridgell​. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed​.

Info

10/01/2026 Samba 4.25.0 File Formats and Conventions