Samba, NFS and gnome
 

My question: my home netwok is composed of a desktop computer running win 2k and a laptop running slackware 9.1.
I have a stack of files on the desktop that I want to be able to use from the laptop (not really the other way around). I understand that the solution is to use NFS on win2k and samba on linux but don't really know how to do it.

1) How do I run an nfs server on my win2k box (sorry, not massively relevant here). Any software to recommend?
2) Is samba a default on slackware 9.1 and how do I set up linux to see my nfs drive?
3) What about permissions and login?
4) My desktop uses NTFS as a filesystem. Do I need to have NTFS support on my linux kernel to read those files from the NFS drive.
5) Is samba supported by default in Gnome 2.4 (I use dropline) or do I need to install extra software?

Help more than welcome as I am a total newbie in this domain...
Thanks in advance
L.

Re: Samba, NFS and gnome
 

You don't need NFS on the Win2K side to export the filesystem. You just export it the normal way (using a drive share), and the Linux system uses samba to mount it. No NFS required.

Any recent distro worth its salt will have samba installed and configured, and will have icons or menu items provided to browse your network environment. If the Win2K box is exporting the filesystem, it will show up in that.

You mean that I just need to share the folder I want to access? Is it what you mean by 'export it the normal way'?
And then, I just type something like smb://<machine IP> in Nautilus?
Would that work?
Thanks for the help!

'Yes' and 'yes' to the first two questions.

I don't know Nautilus well enough to answer your second question, but it might well work ;). Most modern file managers have a way to transparently access SMB shares across the network.

However, you could also put the share in your /etc/fstab so you can mount it from the command line. Put a line such as this in /etc/fstab:

You don't need the username if it is the same on both machines. If you include this line in /etc/fstab, you can mount the share as a user. You can also use a credentials=<some file> option instead of username= to provide credentials (see man smbmount).

Thank you. Will try all that tonight and report here...
L

Hummm. I can definetly mount the share windows drive manually by typing:
This returns the error:
But still mount the drive!

However, with the following line in fstab:
When trying to mount, I have the error

returned.
Any idea someone? I would really like to have it mounted at boot up...

Can someone help on the fstab entry? I would like to sort it out!
Thanks!

surely, someone knows, no?

Try specifying smbfs instead of auto.

Thanks musrum, it worked. However, another problem now: I can't mount the device as a normal user. It returns this error:

smbmnt must be installed suid root for direct user mounts (1000,1000)

I am not really sure why as the permission on the file smbmnt is 755... Can you help please?

The code in smbmnt checks who is running the command. So even though everybody has execute permissions, it still fails. All execute permision on the file means is that the kernel will load and start the image.

The problem is that smbmnt causes side effects that impact the entire system, something you normally want to restrict to root. So how do you allow an ordinary user to use smbmnt?

You set the suid and sgid bit on smbmnt - by the following:

chmod ug+s /usr/bin/smbmnt

If you now try:

ls -l /usr/bin/smbmnt

You will see

-rwsr-sr-x 1 root root 339455.......

This means that when smbmnt is run, the kernel will set the _effective_ uid and gid of the process to root and root. Voila, any user can run smbmnt.

Of course, the user must have permissions on the directory where he tries to mount the smb volume.

Once again, very much thank you for such a thorough explanation musrum! Everyday you learn a new thing :-)

It is now working great and I can mount my window drive as a normal user in slack. Just one anomality: I have very large files on that drive (mpeg files of up to 5 gigas), however, when mounted in slack, the reported size levels out at 1.7 gb which happens to be slighly over 1 hour of video. 1h02sec (coincidence..)

Is there a limit on the size of files to access via NFS. If yes, can that be altered?
Thanks for you help again!
L

Another question: I would like to monitor the quality of the wireless link and the transfer rate.
Gnome comes with a small app to monitor wireless connection, but it refuses to worth on eth1 which is configured using iwconfig (it returns, no wireless connection), that is with the Prism Duette based pmcia card.
Is there a way to make it work?
Altenatively, is there another app I can use?
Thanks
L

EDIT: The app I am talking about is 'wireless link monitor' applet!