Hi!
I have an ethernet connection between 2 redhat linux 8 pcs at home.

I went to the terminal and typed /etc/init.d/smb start to start samba. The 2 messages appeared: starting SMB services [OK]
starting NMB services [OK]

Then I typed the ps aux | grep smb and the following messages appeared : root 1401 0.0 0.7 4916 1804 ? S 21:23 0:00 smbd-D
root 1459 0.0 0.2 3276 628 pts/os 21:41 0:00 grep smb
Does the above output messages mean that samba is up and working properly ?

Then I typed the smbclient //169.254.156.54/share and the following output messages appeared:
added interface ip=169.254.61.56 bcast=169.254.255.255 nmask=255.255.0.0
password:
I did not assign a network passwork so I typed Enter
Then the messages appeared:
Anonymous login successful
Domain=[ONG] OS=[UNIX] Server=[samba 2.2.5]
tree connect failed:NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME

Do you know what does the last output sentence mean and where does the problem lie and how to solve it ?
Oh yes,why is there no directory name e.g /usr/sbin/smbd before the smbd-D part ?

Please reply quickly if you can......thanks!!

check you smb.conf file. in order to connect to samba from another machine you need a username and password on the unix box that samba lies. also are you trying to connect from a linux or windows machine?

The login appears to be successful so, I'm not so sure about having to have a user/password.

I note that your domain is [ONG] and assume that you've set this in your smb.conf on both ends

The running of smbd would imply that samba is up and running correctly, yes.

But :

Note that smbclient is case sensitive with respect to the SHARE name so you must get it exactly right otherwise you'll see the dreaded NT_STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_NAME error.

You can test the status of a machine using the smbclient -L command. Syntax is like :

smbclient -L /server -U username

It should show you the share names visible. So for a machine on my network it looks like this :

Sharename Type Comment
--------- ---- -------
Downloads Disk
HPLaserJ Printer HP LaserJet 6P/6MP PostScript
OmniBack Disk
Percy Printer HP LaserJet 6MP


where Downloads is a share name.

Slick.