A guy from the Newbie thread told me to post it here my problem. so here I am.
At the moment...I have peer-to-peer connection within LAN. (No internet access yet!)

Somehow...I managed to run Samba. The problem is that I can see my brothers computer as "hermes" but I cannot get access to it...it says something abt opening with associate application. From his computer, he can get access to mine. but i cannot get access to his. He is using Window XP. Mine is Fedora V10.

Problem:

- I would like to know how to use Samba for file sharing with other OSs with Linux. eg: like in Window Platform there is network neighbourhood.

- Other OSs : 1. Window XP.
2. Window 2000 Server.
3. Fedora V10 (mine)

Please help me! I just started using it 3 days ago!!

Are firewalls involved?

Ports 137-139, 445, and 631 may need to be opened.

There is no firewall. Do I need firewall?

You don't need a firewall unless and until you are connected to the web.

Does your brother have any shared folders on his machine (he needs to right click on c:\ in Windows Explorer) and select Sharing - then de-select sharing - then OK - then he must repeat but select sharing and give it a name such as 'C: on hermes') otherwise you will never be able to see any files from Fedora.

Also it would help if your brother added a new user to his machine (using your Fedora Username i.e. what you log in as {no password is necessary as long as neither of you are connected to the internet).

Do you use fixed IP addresses for your machines? If so your brother needs to edit lmhosts and hosts (no extensions) found in c:\WINDOWS\System32\Drivers\etc (note that on a win2k box you might need to substitute WINNT for the WINDOWS in the aforementioned location). He would then add the dedicated IP address assigned for your box followed by at least one space and the 'host' name that you have given to your Fedora box (localhost - won't hack it!). Then you need to add a user to your Fedora box: 'brother's login username' and a password' - this will have the effect of creating a /home directory on your Fedora box, and you can, if you so wish, restrict him to only seeing and/or accessing files that you or he add to that directory.

HTH

I have a similar situation. There is a firewall, how do I go about opening those ports? Thanks in advance.

dubya

A clue as to which firewall (software or hardware) you are using might help someone answer your question!

I didn't specify the software or hardware because I'm not sure what I am using. All I know is that I am using the firewall that came with Fedora Core 3 if that helps at all. Thanks.

For samba you need to have ports 137, 138, 139, 445 open. For security, you don't want those ports open to the internet.

dubya

I don't have a FC3 virtual machine built yet so a I cannot guess what firewall FC3 loads by default, however if you runs aux in a console you should see a process running that contains 'wall' or something similar to indicate what firewall is running. Are you running kde or gnome? If so perhaps I can tell you how to 'turn off' the 'service' i.e. you can try 'seeing' other machines with Samba before addressing the firewall blocking - if indeed that is your problem - and/or the opening of the specified ports.

I hate to sound really stupid, but how would I do that? Is it system-config-securitylevel? Then I list the ports separated by commas? Thanks.

The firewall that comes with FC3 is iptables. Running system-config-firewall should enable you to configure it

I would love to help you, but I only know how to do it in YaST on SuSE.

system-config-firewall does not exist on my computer. I do have system-config-securitylevel. When I try to open these ports, it tells me that the proper syntax is: 'portrotocol' for example '1234:udp'. I suppose all I need to know is what protocol samba is. Anyone help?

tcp I am fairly sure. if not, try udp, and tell us which one it is for sure.

Yo...guys...Samba has finally worked on my pC..hell yeeeeah!! And I am happy abt it.
The problem was that I didn't put the correct DNS name!!

eg: in network - my hostname before was : stringless.net
now is : cyrus.stringless

and in hosts - I had to add the PC's IP that I want to share with and put the host which is mine! Oh...i had to deactivate first before doing all those and save and reactivate it.
after that I started samba. And ~tan dan~ finally it worked!