out on www.samba.org, there is a HOWTO guide for Samba 3. In that PDF file/book, there is a section on troubleshooting. There's also an article out there about browsing by Chris Hertel, one of the samba team members.

The section on troubleshooting will allow you to do some tests on the linux side to determine whether or not your system is properly resolving information about your samba config, and will help you determine why its not showing up on your network.

When you double-click on the box, what happens? Nothing?

-Josh

I'll answer the last two posts with one reply.

First - thanks for the samba article link - I've been looking for something like that, but there's just too much out there - it's like drinking from a firehose.

Second, I'm seeing something a little different now. I went ahead and put my old conf file back into place, with everything but the lines that were given in this thread commented out. I basically had the same file with a whole lot of comments. Now the Linux box shows up as workgroup (Localhost) Same results though - when I double-click on the box from XP, I get "\\Localhost is not accessible. You might not hav permission to use this network resource. Contact the Administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. You were not connected because a duplicate name exists on the network. Go to System in Control Panel to change the comptuer name and try again."

I double checked - my XP is named "sony", my mac is named "grayimac" and I don't know what the Linux box is named, per my earlier post.

hi

i think your problem is that your linux box doesnt have a proper host name. The samba server needs a NetBIOS name and it defaults to the hostname of the linux box. this is "localhost" in your case (which doesent work because this is also the name of your XP machine). You can do one of two things either give your linux machine a proper name or add the following to smb.conf: "netbios name = [name of your choosing]" This is the easiest i think. The name can be max 15 charachters and may not contain spaces, \, / , _ and the sort.

regards

Hamsjael

Thanks, I replaced the contents of my smb.conf file with the above. But I still can't see the Linux machine from the Windows machines.

I added the Netbios name line and saw a change on the XP box. Here is my current smb.conf file:

[global]

workgroup = workgroup

hosts allow = 192.168.1. 192.168.2. 127.

netbios name = linuxserver

[home]

read only = no
guest ok = no

On the XP box, when I browse my workgroup, I can see a box marked "Samba 2.2.8a (Linuxserver). However, when I double-click on it I get "\\Linuxserver is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. The network path was not found."

Any suggestions?

hi

Are your XP box and Linux box on the same network ?? i can see that you are allowing 192.168.1. and 192.168.2. this is 2 different networks if you are using the default mask (255.255.255.0) !!

If your XP machine is on a different network than the samba server it will confuse NetBIOS as it broadcasts on 192.168.1.255. and 192.168.2.255

what are the IP numbers and masks of your XP and Linux box ?

Make sure they are on the same network !! Otherwise NetBIOS will surely fail, but direct IP communication is still possible in some cases.

regards

Hamsjael

They are both on the same network. The xp box is 2.5 and the Linux box is 2.7. Both subnet masks are 255.255.255.0.

Should I removed the 198.168.1. from my conf file?

Also, what is the bcast number that is given when I run the ifconfig? I have a OSX box on the same network and when I run ifconfig on it, it shows a different IP, but same bcast address as the Linux box. Could that be causing a problem, and if so, where do I edit the bcast address - I can't find it anywhere.

If these things aren't problems, can anyone tell me what other services should be running to enable the two machines to talk? I assumed that it was only smb, but what about other services associated with xinet.d? It took me an hour last night to figure out how to get SWAT up and running yet it seems like it should have already been on from other guides on the internet - maybe something else that's supposed to be on isn't.

The frustrating part is that I can see XP from Linux - I have permissions to add folders, move things, etc.

Hi joshnerl

Your IP-configuration is OK.

The only service related to samba that needs xinet.d is swat, so this should not be a problem.

Im not quite sure what the problem is but here is a few things to try:

1. User account: Do you have a smb useraccount?
see if the file /etc/samba/smbpasswd exist, if it DOES NOT, run "smbpasswd -a root" as root. this will ask you for a passwd for the samba account for root. You will be asked for this username and password when contacting the samba server from windows. If it DOES exist you can check for smb accounts by seeing the contents of this file (it is a list of smbusers with their encrypted password. You can change your smbpassword by just running the "smbpasswd" command, or "smbpasswd [username]" for a different user.
If you do not want to be asked for a password every time you use the samba server you have to make a unix account with the same username as your account on the winXP box, and then run smbpasswd for this user and set the password to the same as on the winXP box.

2. Firewall: Are you sure you do not have a firewall running on the linuxbox ?

3. Access control: Try commenting out the "hosts allow" section and see if it helps

4. last idea: check if both smbd AND nmbd is running: use the commands: "ps -aux | grep smbd" and "ps -aux | grep nmbd" to see if the daemons are running.

5. check the log files in /var/log/samba for clues to what is wrong.

good luck

Hamsjael

ps.

just thought of this:

You can force your linuxbox to be the machine holding the browselist (the list of computers in "my network places") by adding this to smb.conf in the global section:

os level = 33
preferred master = yes
local master = yes
domain master = yes

this way the linux box will always hold the list as long as nmbd is runnning.

If you keep having problems could you post the output from "testparm" ? (run "testpam >> testparm.txt" this will put it in the file testparm.txt)

regards

Hamsjael