I have Samba 3.0.7 installed and operating on my Feather 0.6.0 laptop. My server is a Windows XP box. I can access both Windows boxes (servers and another client) from my Samba laptop and move files around just fine. When I go to a Windows box and click Network Neighborhood, I can not even see Samba laptop. If I click on view network connections, I can see an icon for "Samba 3.0.7 (Debian)", however; if I click on it I have no access. I have tried changing my smb.conf file to "yes and no" for encrypt passwords - to no avail. Anyone got any ideas what I might have missed. I did perform adduser in console, added the two windows boxes and assigned them passwords. I have gone back and added these users and passwords in my samba password file (not sure the name of the file, but it is in the samba directory). It does not seem to matter what I do, I can not access the Samba laptop from a Windows box. If you have a suggestion that may be beyond my meager Linux experience - please put it in basic terms. I can get around okay, but am still fairly "Linux Stupid", I know just enough to screw stuff up, lol.

well... i don't use deb, but i have played around w/ samba a pretty fair bit. somethings that i tend to overlook often are making sure the smb.conf file has the correct workgroup and i usually add the ip range to the allow list (w/ just 192.168.) and sometimes for added measure i will add the actual machine names. but then again, i am in pretty much the same boat right now cause i can see my samba server but i get "don't have permission to access" or some such nonsense... i don't know, i'm hoping that its just a result of the last round of updates, cause i sure can't think of anything else to do or change.

When you say that you have no access, can you elaborate a little. Do you get any error message, or does nothing happen, or do you just not see any shares?

I see no shares from the XP Box under "network neighborhood". In XP, while you are in network neighborhood there is an option on the left side on the window that says "view network connections". If I click on that I see Samba (Debian). If I click on that I get a message that says that I have no permission to access Samba, please contact system administrator. I can move files all around between XP and Samba from my Samba laptop, just not from the XP box.

probably already thought of this but:
does the share directory have the proper execute permisions?

I am not sure, I checked everything to grant every permission that I could. It also does not matter if I encrypt passwords or not, it does not allow access from XP box either way.

One question - when I set up Samba, it asked to "adduser" which I did for each of my other computers (by name of computer) was this for network access or for those users to be able to log onto my Linux Laptop? If it was for Linux access then I have no users assigned to the Samba for networking and that could be my problem. My /etc/samba/smbpassword file is blank, there are no passwords in there at all. That is why I am starting to think that "adduser" is just to give a logon to the Linux computer NOT permit network access.

If that is the case, how do I assign names and passwords for access to samba from other computers?

There MUST be a user in the smbpasswd file and a MATCHING Unix system user. The smbpasswd file performs authentication, the unix system user determines the access permissions of the user to read/write files and other resources. Use smbpasswd to add samba users matching the unix accounts and try to log in using those usernames and passwords. The unix password, if they will only be using samba, is irrelevant, and I find it best to disallow shell access to those accounts (unless, obviously, they also use shell).

Can I just edit the smbpasswd file with my editor and add users. What is the format that I use. For Example:

User1 = &&&&, where User1 is the user name and &&&& is the password, would that work? I assigned my Windows computers names and passwords when I set up Samba, do I use those names and passwords? I am fairly new to Linux and fairly stupid still.

smbpasswd --help reveals the answer

smbpasswd -a joe

-a is for add user. it will ask for a password to assign to joe.

If you use the same username/password on the server and on the client, you wont have to type in your samba password every time you waant to connect to a share.

the smbpasswd file, I believe, varies from version to version... I only know what the first 3 fields indicate

SMBUSERNAME:UNIXUID:PASSWORDHASH:OTHER:OTHER

If anyone knows what the last two fields are, it might be interesting.

In any case, the smbpasswd program must be used to edit it correctly, i believe.

This fixed my problem beautifully, thank you so much. I have full access to all computers now from any station in the network. I really appreciate you folks taking the time to help others. This was great! Thanks again.

No problem. Maybe one day you'll be able to help others as well.