Somebody please help me before i stangle that bloody penguin!!!

Been working on setting up samba on my local lan. I have been reading a few step by step guides etc.

I can currently see my linux box from windows but i am unable to access it. I get a message saying network path not found.

One guide suggested i need to configure my etc/host file.

Could some one explain how to do this, ie do i need to add new host for each pc on the network and if so do i just use the pcs Ip address.
Could some one explain what this does!

Getting fustrated so any help would be most appreciated.

working with fedora redhat

thanks in advance

karl

I'm not sure what /etc/hosts has to do with yoru problems, but it is easy enough to configure. It is a plain text file. Add the IP addresses and names of the hosts on your local lan, with a plain text editor. Her is mine as an example.

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.1.13 sluggy
192.168.1.11 mrburnie
192.168.1.15 snail
192.168.1.14 presto
192.168.1.12 drt_esa_princ_1

This file saves you from remembering the IP addresses of each box. For example, you could ping 192.168.1.11 -or- ping mrburnie. Either will work now on my lan.

I had trouble with Win XP home (broken version). I had to do some looking around on Microshats web to find a fix. I now have XP W98 sharing files.

i assume these are local ip address. One question dont local ip address change when you log on and off the network etc.

i have the list of local ip address
such as

192.168.1.101

if i am wrong what ip address do i want

thanks for your help its most appreciated

karl

Local addresses only change if you have a DHCP server assigning IP addresses. Routers can be configured to be DHCP servers, or you can configure a linux box to be a DHCP server. The lan will work with a DHCP server or you can assign IP addresses. I'm running DHCP, and my router is the server. It usually assigns the same IP address to the same MAC address, but there are no guarantees. The advantage to DHCP is, if you are plugging in different machines to a lan, the user doesn't have to know and assign an IP address to get it working. The new box will make a DHCP request, and the server assigns an available IP address.

It may be easier for you if the number of machines is small, and not changing to assign the IP addresses manually. That will get rid of the guess work until you resolve any other issues.

In linux, the easiest?? way to tell what your IP address is; at a console type /sbin/ifconfig example:

$ /sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 000:B7:26:B3:78
inet addr:192.168.1.13 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::2d0:b7ff:fe26:b378/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:314 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:696 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:152306 (148.7 Kb) TX bytes:88023 (85.9 Kb)
Interrupt:11 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:185 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:185 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:17448 (17.0 Kb) TX bytes:17448 (17.0 Kb)

The MAC address is the field HWaddr. This is burned into the card by the manufacturer. The field inet addr is the IP address my machine is currently using.

Hope this helps.