Ok, I'm sure the people here get this all the time. And I have done this before, which makes it so confusing. I'm a recent convert from MDK10.0 to FC3. I'm very much like Fedora, but I really got it because the drive holding my Mandrake crashed and I wanted something new. Anyway, I had a backup of my smb.conf file, configured just as I liked it: Totally open access. Some directories writeable, some read-only, but ALL were TOTALLY viewable by anyone on the network without so much as a password prompt. All other machines in the house are Win2k or XP. So I figured I copy my old smb.conf file right over and it works, right? Wrong. Even with the directories set up the same and the same file (I also THINK I did the smbpasswd thing in the command line properly), I can SEE the linux box on my network, but when I try to connect (from multiple XP computers) I get it not accessible, can't find network path, several errors. And I also don't know WHERE to start to get my printer shared as easily, either. Strange thing is, this samba file was working perfectly for months on the old machine. I don't know if there are different procedures for samba, but I almost get the feeling like I'm missing another step not even related to samba, but I don't know what it is or where to begin looking. I'm posting the ENTIRETY of my smb.conf file. I would greatly appreciate any help. Also, keep in mind, I'm still NEW to linux. If I need to locate a file, I need to be told WHERE it is. I know the system should feel logical, but I don't yet have a good grasp of WHERE linux PUTS things.

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
server string = Linuxbox
netbios name = Denputer
security = share
guest = tim

[media]
path = /home/tim/netshare
writeable = no

[public]
path = /home/tim/pubdrv
writeable = yes

Now I know it's simple, and I suppose it's possible I may have edited it after I saved this copy to get it to work, but I'm 99% sure that did everything file-related just fine for me. It's pretty simple. Thanks. Oh, and "tim" is the primary user of the machine and the home directory where all the stuff resides. First share is read-only, second is a public writeable drive.

Well... different distros put things different places - which is confusing.

I am not familiar with Mandrake at all, and only marginally familiar with FC. I typically use Suse, but with regards to Samba, they should be pretty much the same. I assume Samba 3.x here.

You won't be able to magically login to samba with root unless you've added the "root" user to samba -

smbpasswd root

then set the password.

Keep in mind that samba does not set the security on the shares, which sounds like it could be your problem. Make sure the shares are owned by the user you expect to use them, or have a group assignment for multiples - chown and chmod for setting the proper access to the file system.

You might try looking at the Samba 3 By Example book over on www.samba.org - which steps through configuration of Samba 3.

Jon Johnston
Creative Business Solutions
IBM, Microsoft, Novell/Suse and Sophos Consulting
952-544-1108
http://www.cbsol.com
Blog:http://bingo.cbsol.com

Also check to be sure you don't have a firewall blocking access to your Samba server. Executing iptables -F as root should stop the firewall so you can test if that's the problem.