I've this week loaded and started trying to learn Linux (SuSe 9.1). I am impressed so far, but the launch curve is scary.

I've managed to get the Linux machine to use the printers on the Windows network (3 other machines with 10/100 ethernet to an ADSL hub). That was pretty easy.

The Linux machine can "see" the Windows network, and access files on the three machines on there. However, nothing I can do will let the Windows machines see the Linux one. I assume there's some simple flag somewhere that I need to set, but I've not found it. I've set my user documents to "shared", and turned off the Linux firewall (there's a NAT one in the router).

The Linux machine insists that its "localhost" is 127.0.0.1 whereas its address on the network is 192.168.8.6 (which changes from time to time as the Router changes its DHCP settings). It also has several other IP addresses in the Yast host config, all starting with fe or ff, and with hostnames starting with IVP6 - I don't know what they are, so left them there.

I can ping the Linux machine from any of the others, and it shows in the DHCP table on the Router (with its name as assigned by me in Linux). But nothing I've been able to do makes it appear on the network connections on the Windows machines. That makes it rather difficult to use it (partly at least) as a fileserver, which was the original intention.

Can any kind person tell me what I have to do to get this machine to join the network? I don't want to change distro (I spent last week getting nowhere with Mandrake 10 - SuSe is so much more friendly).

Thanks!

Keithj

If it's any help in the diagnosis, here's an ifconfig:

# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:10:A7:086:45
inet addr:192.168.8.6 Bcast:192.168.8.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::210:a7ff:fe08:d645/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:17289 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:14728 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:18633761 (17.7 Mb) TX bytes:1560667 (1.4 Mb)
Interrupt:5 Base address:0xe000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:298 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:298 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:19464 (19.0 Kb) TX bytes:19464 (19.0 Kb)

To get a linux box to appear as a host on the windows network browser you need to install and start the Samba server which if I recall correctly isn't on by default on 9.1. Make the Samba server part of the same workgroups as your windows boxes and it will appear as if by magic!

I think the Samba server is running - how would I tell? There is certainly a smb.conf file with the Windows workgroup name in it. I can ping the Linux machine, and the router sees it and identifies it, but the Windows machines can't see it. They can see each other just fine.

I'm going to restart the machine (for the thousandth time) to see if that makes any difference...

After much further investigation, I don't think the Samba server is running. I get a message on system start that:
"Mount SMB/ CIFS File Systems unused
Starting resource manager failed"

In Yast, under Network Services, I have Samba Client but no Samba Server: the websites I've looked at all talk about Samba Server, but not how to turn it on.

I downloaded version 3.0.9-2.6 of Samba, and compiled and installed that. The previous version was 3.0.2a-51. The update made no apparent difference at all.

So I think the question becomes "How do I switch on the Samba server?". What more information do I need to post for someone to be able to help?


Keith

try the command
man samba
for the basic info.
Apparently the server daemon is named smbd;simply type smbd or /usr/sbin/smbd in a console to start it.

You can configure the samba server in YaST. The SuSE Administrator's Manual is located on the installation disk. It has a section on setting up networks.

There is also a web based configuration for Samba called SWAT. You will need to install the apache2 web server to use it. You can access swat by pointing your web browser to http://localhost:901 . Installing swat will also install a number of web based man pages, and other documentation including the books "Samba 3 by Example" and "The Official Samba-3 HOWTO and Reference Guide"

Yes - man samba produced a long block of text, but none of it made a lot of sense to me. I'm not that versed in Linux code.

However, smbd on my machine isn't in /usr/sbin; it's in /usr/local/samba/sbin. That's where SuSe put it when I first set up the system a week or so ago. Could that be the problem? If I open a terminal in /usr/local/samba/sbin and type "smbd" I get the response
bash: smbd: command not found.

I tried to find SWAT online: the address http://localhost:901 didn't work, and the addresses Google offered led to "401" errors. There is a program called SWAT in /usr/local/samba/sbin, but it also doesn't work.

All very baffling

The response
bash: smbd: command not found.
results from the fact that /usr/local/samba/sbin is not in your path (your path is simply a list of directories in which bash searches for commands to execute); in that case you need to enter the full path for the command (or change to the superuser root, in which case you don't need to type the full path;the samba may need to be started by the root user in any case for other reasons). So as an ordinary user, type
/usr/local/samba/sbin/smbd
You can give a command from any directory if you give the full path (i.e., address) of the command.
To change to the superuser (called root) type the command su.

It seems that you should be root to start the samba daemon. To verify that it is running type the command
ps -e|grep smbd
(or just ps -e to get a list of all processes). If you are in the graphical system you can also use the program kpm (assuming you have KDE installed); just type kpm& on the command line.

Thanks for those. I tried /usr/local/samba/sbin/smbd and the response was the same prompt i'd just seen. It didn't appear to do anything.

I tried ps -e and received a list, not including smbd. Here's the exchange betwen me and Terminal in su mode:

Vincente:/home/keef # /usr/local/samba/sbin/smbd
Vincente:/home/keef # ps -e
PID TTY TIME CMD
1 ? 00:00:06 init
2 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0
3 ? 00:00:00 events/0
4 ? 00:00:00 kblockd/0
6 ? 00:00:00 khelper
5 ? 00:00:00 kapmd
7 ? 00:00:00 pdflush
8 ? 00:00:01 pdflush
10 ? 00:00:00 aio/0
9 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0
692 ? 00:00:00 kseriod
1291 ? 00:00:00 reiserfs/0
2568 ? 00:00:00 khubd
2651 ? 00:00:00 pccardd
2665 ? 00:00:00 pccardd
2795 ? 00:00:00 cardmgr
3111 ? 00:00:00 dhcpcd
3238 ? 00:00:00 syslogd
3241 ? 00:00:00 klogd
3276 ? 00:00:00 hwscand
3345 ? 00:00:04 resmgrd
3358 ? 00:00:00 portmap
3619 ? 00:00:00 sshd
3927 ? 00:00:07 powersaved
4110 ? 00:00:00 cupsd
4286 ? 00:00:00 master
4295 ? 00:00:00 qmgr
4447 ? 00:00:00 xinetd
4451 ? 00:00:01 nscd
4457 ? 00:00:00 cron
4679 ? 00:00:00 kdm
4702 ? 00:02:17 X
4731 ? 00:00:00 kdm
4733 tty1 00:00:00 mingetty
4734 tty2 00:00:00 mingetty
4735 tty3 00:00:00 mingetty
4736 tty4 00:00:00 mingetty
4737 tty5 00:00:00 mingetty
4738 tty6 00:00:00 mingetty
4750 ? 00:00:00 kde
4812 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit
4815 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit
4817 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit
4820 ? 00:00:01 kdeinit
4828 ? 00:00:00 artsd
4830 ? 00:00:01 kdeinit
4831 ? 00:00:00 kwrapper
4833 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit
4834 ? 00:00:07 kdeinit
4836 ? 00:00:01 kdeinit
4839 ? 00:00:01 kdeinit
4840 ? 00:00:06 kdeinit
4842 ? 00:00:13 kdeinit
4847 ? 00:00:03 kdeinit
4849 ? 00:00:01 kamix
4850 ? 00:00:02 kpowersave
4855 ? 00:00:01 susewatcher
4856 ? 00:00:04 suseplugger
4860 ? 00:00:01 kwalletmanager
4863 ? 00:00:01 kdeinit
4864 ? 00:00:06 kdeinit
4865 ? 00:00:02 kopete
4986 ? 00:00:00 kdesud
5137 ? 00:00:00 artsd
5283 ? 00:00:00 kdeinit
8843 ? 00:00:00 pickup
9499 ? 00:00:00 firefox
9510 ? 00:00:00 run-mozilla.sh
9515 ? 00:00:32 firefox-bin
9518 ? 00:00:00 gconfd-2
9536 ? 00:00:02 kdeinit
9548 pts/1 00:00:00 su
9549 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
9585 pts/1 00:00:00 su
9586 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
9594 pts/1 00:00:00 ps
Vincente:/home/keef #

I'm obviously missing something, but can't for the life of me see what it is!


Keith

this time you didn't get a complaint from bash so presumably smbd started ok. It is strange however that it didn't show up in the ps listing.
Look the system log file /var/log/syslog (I am assuming that is how suze calls it); there should be an entry when you started smbd.

There isn't a log called that. There are many other logs, and none mentions smbd. I don't think smbd or any of the other Samba Server stuff is starting - I think it just "drops out" - that's certainly the impression I get when I try to run it in a terminal window. Samba client is working, so I can look at other computers on the network from here, but something is preventing Samba from working for inbound stuff.

Time to give up, I think. I tried Knoppix and Mandrake last year, and gave up on both of those when they wouldn't work properly - they had "Mount shares" all over the desktop, but wouldn't work as a server. SuSe's been the nearest so far, but still doesn't do what Win2000 does on the "old" server that this one was intended to replace.

Try the command
smbd -D

Sorry - this website disappeared from my ISP's DNS for a day or so, and it's only recently come back up.

I've done a lot more digging these past two days, installed a later version od Samba, found loads of logfiles, tinkered with smb.conf options, used combinations of smbd commands (including smbd -D many times). I've had an exhausting couple of days when I was determined to sort this, and I'm afraid to report Linux has won.

The core of the problem is that if smbd is running (and I think it is), it's not talking to anything else. Swat reports that it's not running, and asking swat to start it results in a pause of a few seconds, then a report that it's still not running.

Sometimes when I try to start smbd via the console I get a message "smbd is already running /usr/var/locks/smbd.pid exists and process ID 6288 is running."

The Linux machine can see the others (all Windows, various flavours) on the network and access them, print to their printers, and so on. Those machines can see this one, but they can't access it. I'm sure it's the absence of a working copy of smbd that's causing that.

I think smbd is getting some wrong parameters, or missing some. Here's a dialogue from var/log.warn from this evening that I think may be significant:

May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: Must specify a server in login
May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: Port not specified and can't find service: nmbd with getservbyname
May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: No such internal service: servers/stream - DISABLING
May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: No such internal service: services/stream - DISABLING
May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: Port not specified and can't find service: smbd with getservbyname
May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: Must specify a server in smtpd
May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: Must specify a server in telnet
May 19 18:53:20 Vincente xinetd[4456]: Port not specified and can't find service: winbindd with getservbyname

If I knew what that wants and where to input it, maybe...

But three days of plugging away is almost enough. SuSe and Linux - and particularly Samba - are not top of my favourites. I'm off on holiday for a week.