Frustrated with DHCP and Samba (FC6, XP clients)
 

I'm running two Linux servers, both FC6 with fairly current updates.

The first server, poppa, hosts an internal DNS behind a firewall only for ease of reference to key machines. I'll go DDNS if I have to, but right only trying to use static DNS. Poppa serves as the gateway and firewall.

The second server, momma, is my DHCP and file server with Samba and NFS. It should assume that everything else connecting to it is behind the firewall. I have an internal wireless network that is an access point only and is behind the firewall with a fixed IP within the local subnet.

Momma has a shared directory called /public on it for filesharing with all internal computers.

Here's the problem, my local workstations can attach, though they come in as the main user configured on Momma. A laptop, and so using the wireless, and logging in as another user can sometimes glimpse Momma but can never keep a connection to access /public. The laptop has no problem getting an IP lease from the DHCP server and is always able to browse the Internet and so connectively doesn't appear to be an issue.

My most telling symptom of what is amiss is given by the following listing from /var/log/messages taken just after I restarted named on poppa, then restarted dhcpd and smb on momma, then "repaired" the connection to the laptop, and then, from that laptop, attempted to browse the files on momma:

PART1 of 2 (where 2 is a following post):

SELinux on Momma is set to permissive.

I'm not sure where to start. I can post the config files if you tell me which ones you'd like to start with.

Can you help save my Christmas with some advice?

Thanks much,
Richard

And the second half of the messages dump is below:

Richard

I have focused on the following lines, but am still stumped:

The user that is involved is registered with a GID of 501 along with the UID of 501, so I'm not sure where the -1 is creeping in. I've set my nobody and nfsnobody to UID and GID's of less than 1000, so I'm still not sure where to go next. Is there another log file that would give me more of an idea?

Hopeful ping.

Richard

Now that the holidays are over, I thought I'd ping one more time.

Even if all you can offer is a lead where to look further, I'd appreciate the advice.

Thanks in advance,
Richard

I'm just curious. . .can you post up the [public] part of your /etc/samba/smb.conf?

Also, are you sharing /public over NFS and Samba at the same time?

ARC1450, thank you so much for replying.

Below is the public part of the /etc/samba/smb.conf file:
Yes, /pub is shared under both NFS and Samba.

Regards,
Richard

Hmmm. . .it LOOKS okay. . .

Do the crashes happen when any other directory is accessed via Samba? Or is it just the PUBLIC share?

If it's all shares, post up your [global] config for Samba, please. If it's just the PUBLIC share, you might want to check that the owner of /pub has a valid UID and GID.

Well, the user has a another SAMBA share, /home/someuser/tie/, that is intended to act as their MyDocuments target in Windows. My general observation has been crashes on any attempt to access either. So, here's global:

I have played with the user's GID/UID settings to assure access without significant effect. The /pub directory has the following settings:

One more note, even with this crash, the user can get intermittent access. Further, the user with UID/GID 500/500 has no apparent problem and so not cause such crashes, even accessing in the same way with Windows. Don't know if this is relevant, but it's part of what is challenging in diagnosing the issue.

Also,
Richard

Just curious, why are you assigning /pub to "nobody"?

Have you tried it without the username map to make sure that works? Have you tried running testparm on your smb.conf file?

For some reason, I'm thinking "nobody" on Linux/UNIX is a special owner, much like root, but I could be wrong. :-\

I think you want the option:
Guest OK = Yes
in the settings for your [Public] share.

ARC1450: nobody is a named user, set up by default in Linux (at least in FC6). My intent is that the items in /pub are shared between all users. My intent is that files posted there "owned" by all users with access to this file server. At work, we use the same technique, but most of our users are on Linux workstations, so they're not having to go through Samba. It is my theory is that the Samba crash is preventing any access to the server, not just /pub, but maybe I'm wrong.

I'm not sure what running without the username map means. Can you point me in the right direction to learn more?

Here is the result from the testparm:

jschiwal: Thank you for joining in.

I can do as you suggest at least as a diagnostic. I guess I was thinking it would add another layer to prevent non-named users to accessing my file server.

Still, wouldn't the fact that the UID=501 user has to supply a username, etc. indicate that Samba should accept them as logged in? Why would Samba crash? Further, the user's specific files not on public will require that their UID is set propertly to be accessible. Both sets of files are encountering these access difficulties not just the public files. I'm still confused by the failure of Samba to set UID/GID, described in my third post above of 12/24. I'm not the crash is the reason for the access problems, it just seems like the most overt symptom.

Richard

I was out of town for a few days traveling. Are there any ideas you have on my question regarding UID/GIDs?

Thanks,
Richard

Sorry, when I meant "nobody" was a special user, it's much like "root", except in reverse. As in, "nobody" generally has very little, if no, access to the system. For example, if you set up a TFTP server on Linux, the default owner/creator of the files is "nobody" so that no one can access the files. I could be wrong, though. The way I have Samba set up is that each named user owns their own directory, but root owns the top level directory of the share.

ANYWAY. . .have you checked your /etc/group, /etc/shadow, or /etc/passwd to find out who has the UID/GID that's causing all the problems? At least on Gentoo (dunno about Fedora), but any user created generally starts at 1000+ for the UID, and everything under that is generally for the system.

[edit]And by username map I meant this: username map = /etc/samba/smbusers