Managing System Center Configuration Manager Clients in a Workgroup
When managing SMS or SCCM clients that are in a workgroup, clients will need access to a WINS server that contains the proper entries for the SMS/SCCM site systems. If a WINS is not available, as an alternative you can edit the LMHOSTS and HOSTS files on each client to allow for name resolution.
LMHOSTS file:
Add the SMS information to an LMHOSTS file, which you can copy to each client:
<IP Address> Siteserver #PRE
<IP Address> "SMS_SLP \0x1A" #PRE
<IP Address> "SMS_MP \0x1A" #PRE
<IP Address> "SMS_NLB \0x1A" #PRE (Only needed if the MP is load balanced)
# "12345678901234567890"
Note: There must be 20 characters between the quotation marks for each entry. The last line (# "12345678901234567890") is there to help make sure of that requirement and you can eliminate it in your actual LMHOSTS file.
If your clients need to assign to a secondary site, replace the SMS_MP with the following:
<IP Address of Secondary Site MP> "SMS_XXX \0x1A" #PRE (XXX replace with site code)
# "12345678901234567890"
HOSTS file:
Add the SMS information to a HOSTS file, which you can copy to each client.
<IP Address> siteserver.your.domain
<IP Address> MPservername.your.domain
Both the LMHOSTS and the HOSTS file can be found in the \windows\system32\drivers\etc directory. LMHOSTS will be named LMHOSTS.sam so after editing the file you will need to remove the .sam extension.
Once that is completed, open a command prompt and run the following command:
nbtstat -R
This will load the LMHOSTS file.
Note: This information was originally contributed by Ellis George, Senior System Center Support Engineer, on the Configuration Manager Support Team blog: