I am having trouble trying to get a samba server configured to act as a file server. I have several Windows machines that are part of a workgroup called home. I have a linux machine with Red Hat 9 installed and working ok. I set up a folder on the linux machine that I have shared. Its called Music. My problem is that although from the windows machine I can see the linux machine I am unable to browse the shared folder. If I browse the linux machine I get asked for a password. I use a valid login " graham" with a valid password. Both password and login are valid on both windows machines and the linux machine. I am using windows xp.

I releaise that my problem is in the config file so I have posted it in case someone can see what I am doing wrong.

#======================= Global Settings =====================================
[global]

workgroup = Home
server string = File Server
hosts allow = 192.168.1.
printcap name = /etc/printcap
load printers = yes
printing = cups
guest ok = yes
guest account = graham
log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
max log size = 0
security=user
encrypt passwords = yes
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
unix password sync = Yes
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *New*password* %n\n *Retype*new*password* %n\n *passwd:
pam password change = yes
obey pam restrictions = yes
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
guest ok = yes
dns proxy = no


[Music]
path = /home/graham/Music
public = yes
writeable = yes
comment = Music files
guest ok = yes


any help on thios would be much appreciated.

I'm having the same problem. All the docs seem to be under the assumption that I already know what I'm doing before I read them.

I seemed to have the same problem with the version of Samba that came with my Red Hat 9 CDs. I went to the Samba project, grabbed the latest version and, voila, filesharing worked (Win2000). A guy I work with installed from the same Red Hat 9 CDs and his worked. Perhaps it was a configuration issue and reinstalling corrected it....don't know...Good luck

http://www.samba.org

I did manage to get it working just a few minutes ago without reinstalling!! (I don't believe it would have fixed the problem, anyway...)

All the usernames on the Windows machine are Capitalized. The Linux usernames aren't, of course. Through Webmin I added a username mapping, and it all worked just ducky.

Sooo... I checked in /etc/samba, and there was a new file called user.map that had the usernames I had just added through webmin in the form of

username=Username

I added the rest of my usernames to it in both their linux and windows variations, and everybody can access fine now.

Now I'm wondering... can this be used to map different windows users to different samba users? Or perhaps multiple windows users to a single samba user? hmmmm.....

Well I now have a really weird thing happening. I added browsable=yes to my config file and then 2 out of my 3 windows machine can now access the Music directory HOWEVER the other one can't and the strange this is they all have usernames of graham and the same passwords. Anyone got any ideas on this one.

StWeaver: one thing is if you have the firewall turned on you will have problems and that might have happpend in the install process.

One other thing is it possible not have to have to use a username and password. What I really want is to be able to just have an open share that any of my network can read and right to?

Red hat 9 sucked bigtime for this I finally gave up

best advise load up redhat 10 or fedora 1.0 this comes with samba 3 update configure it through the user interface and it will work without
problems make sure that your windows machines and linux box'es are on the same network and same workgroup... if you are running a windows domain then use the domain name for the workgroup instead...

I dont know jack about linux except how to install it and configure smb and it worked just fine good luck

get webmin or swat save lots of hassles

I had a similar problem, had users set up on my linux (red hat 7), and users set up on my Xp boxes, but when i tried to connect to samba shares, it didn't work. Finally realized that i had to add the usernames/passwords to samba as well. haven't looked at the config file yet, but i just used swat to add the smbusers. I think the commandline is smbpasswd ?? maybe that will help someone, as any of th eusers i add in there can now get the shares i want them to.