Setting up a linux server
 

I want to set up one linux server to replace my win98 "pseudo server" (called MAIN). It is using network neighborhood, windows client, microsoft family login, tcp/ip, IPX/spx, netbui, file and print sharing. I have one partitioned drive that is being shared with the other 29 win98 computers. For the last 16 years, I have been using 30 win98 computers in an intranet environment. They are all networked but none are connected to the internet. One of the win98 computers is acting as my server or "pseudo-server" I know its not a real server, but all the other computers read files from it and then write files back to it at the same time. I have been using this setup for 16 years and its worked flawlessly for the most part. None of the computers are connected to the internet. My "pseudoserver" is going to need to be replaced very soon because the resistors on the motherboard are starting to bulge. I have a new computer to replace my old pseudoserver. I would just replace the old hardware with new hardware and reinstall win98 and keep using it as my server, but win98 will not support new hardware (motherboard, harddrives, network adapters etc . I have tried using winxp, but its limited to only 5 connections at a time. I have tried installing microsoft 2008server exactly like the win98 setup but it is acting buggy and inconsistent. I have attempted several distros of linux (ubuntu, ubuntu server, and linux mint) with no success at all. I need to have 30 computers hooked to my server and reading files like my win98 "pseudoserver" I have read several online post about shares and have created folders with share setings but my win98 computers dont see it on the network and my linux server doesnt see any of my win98 computers.

Depends what you mean by "see". I bet you can ping system to system. The question is what do you intend to do? Sounds like you wish to exchange files, therefore NFS is a good choice, or SAMBA.

The way my network is currently set up I can go to any computer in the room and open network neighborhood and see the drive f on main and copy, delete or add files to that drive. I would like to have a linux server that could do the same thing. I have given my self a headache for the last 2 weeks typing in everything I have found to try to get linux to communicate with my other computers but no success. I am currently playing with linux mint but I don't really care what distro I have to use. I just can't "see" linux and linux cant see the win98 computers (at least not in network neighborhood or any other way I can think of) It doesnt even seem if i am connecting the linux server to the network. The connection icon for network in mint appears to be continually trying to connect to something. I can plug that same computer into my schools internet and see all kinds of stuff. Printers in the school, other resources etc. When I try to connect this computer to my classroom intranet (non-internet network)it doesn't seem to be connected at all. However, when I connect my win98 server it connects fine. So, theres nothing broken in the hardware of the linux machine and there is nothing broken in my intranet network. I just need help configuring linux to connect to network neighborhood.
Thanks for any comments or help.

I have samba on my linux mint computer but I still can not communicate with the win98 machines.

---------- Post added 12-09-14 at 02:38 PM ----------

I have installed ubuntu but failed to connect to my network

I tried ubuntu server, xandros, kanotix and gnome. I have downloaded all of these and installed them on my server but none seem to work as easily as win98 server. I know win98 is not really a server, but anyways....

I can connect any of these distros to the internet and surf the internet just fine but none seem to work with my intranet network so I must have something goofy set up.

I have no firewall, no virus protection, no internet, just 30 old win98 computers all connected by network switches.

It's not going to be as simple as My Network because that's Microsoft. Or at least I don't know if that's a configurable service which you can set up to have the Linux station appear like a Windows system. Instead either SAMBA or NFS you have either hostname if you use those or IP address and then the share resource name, be that SAMBA or NFS and the name is not "samba" or "nfs" but whatever you named the directory to be when you configured those services.

For instance if I have a directory named /home/fred and my IP address is 192.168.1.100 (always by the way, no DHCP where addresses can be reassigned) and if I named the share resource from SAMBA to be FRED, then I'd access it by \\192.168.1.100\FRED and also have to enter credentials unless I made it so that guests could attach without logging in. You might want to see about guests since your network is private, I'm thinking classroom?

Rather than me search and offer some links for how to configure SAMBA, you probably should search since I have no favorites, just on occasion I forget something and do a quick search to clarify what I should do when I configure. Meaning I don't do this so often. I'm also more of a SAMBA user versus NFS, however those who use NFS will tell you it's way better, easier, etc. I've just managed to get SAMBA running and tend to use that when file sharing needs to be done.

My intranet that is not connected to the WWW connects to my win98 server by using

\\\\Main\\f\\

It does this through network neighborhood.

Main is the computer name and f is the drive letter.

I do not use any IP addresses

Can a linux server have a machine name of Main and a drive letter of f
that will allow win98 computers to read, write and delete documents from it.

I want to do this without configuring the 30 classroom computers.

I want to replace the one win98 computer I am using as the server.

You can set it up to have a hostname of Main and a shared resource of F, be that NFS or SAMBA.

First get your Linux hostname set up to be Main. Then concentrate on setting up a share name F.

Main is a netbios/dns name that resolves to an IP address no? Ie:

To get the IP...

Yes, linux and samba can be configured to meet your requirements.
What distribution is currently installed?

Samba is the service that provides file and print sharing. You need to configure it to have the same workgroup name as your w98 PCs and set netbios name = main. Make sure it is running and then either make sure the firewall is off or allow samba traffic. Once this is done you should be able to see the server in network neighborhood.

Once you have this working we will help with a share to connect as your f: drive.

You can make a file server to do what you want, I don't think you need to make the hostname "main" and make the share F since you can name the share "main" in windows and map the network drive to letter F. What you have to remember is that security has gone leaps and bounds since Win98, as you're seeing, any recent OS is more secure so will take extra steps to connect to them.

If you're like me, I'm a visual learner and here's a guy that can help you install a basic Debian file server. If done right, you should be able to see the share from Win98. If not, post back and we'll help get your samba configured right...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7AHu0rax_4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nntl23uLDrI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCqK47QSRAA

ps... You can get old hardware at the goodwill that should work with Win98 if you can find the drivers. But a linux server for what you're doing will be set it and forget it... You'll have to remember where you put it the next time you need to reboot it...

Hi,
I think this is the key. What is your intranet setup like? Do you have a DHCP server? How did you do to attempt to configure the network on the linux machine?

Evo2.

If the other computers in your network are Windows computers, then Samba would be the choice; NFS is a Linux thing. Note that Windows stupid Homegroup "networking" works only with other Windows devices; it will not work with Linux.

You need to have both Samba server and Samba client installed on your server. Many distros come with Samba client, but not with Samba server out-of-the-box. Then you have to configure Samba server to allow connections, as well as set the directories to be shared in the directory permission (those are two separate operations). (It's a good idea to run a firewall--you can poke holes in it for TCP/IP and UDP connections after you get everything.)

Samba users (those wishing to connect to the Samba shares on your server) must have usernames and passwords entered on the Linux server and be entered in the smbpasswd (Samba password) file. Once that's done successfully, a Windows user in your network should be able to connect to a share via Windows Explorer or another Windows file manager, such as FreeCommander (the one I use).

How to do all this on your distro of choice is beyond the scope of a single forum thread, but Samba by Example is a great reference. It's the document that walked me through getting my own Samba server working. You can get the PDF here. It starts with simple examples and moves to complex ones, with sample configuration files; I found the answers I needed for my simple home server by page 20.

As for a distro, I recommend Slackware or Debian or possibly Mageia for stability, as this is a server, but any mainstream distro should work just fine. If you choose to use Ubuntu or a Ubuntu derivative (Mint, for example), I'd recommend an LTS (long-term support) version, so you don't have to do a version-update every six months or so.

If you encounter specific issues along the way, we will certainly be more than happy to help.

About firewalls: Linux comes with built-in firewall capability called iptables; it's part of the kernel. Linux "firewall" programs are generally front-ends for configuring iptables.

I have been running a samba file server for a few years for file sharing with a dwindling number of Windows PCs, Android tablets & linux computers. Initially I found it a headache to get it up and running - particularly to get permissions sorted out since I did not want some users (ie my kids) to be able to alter/delete files. As Soapm mentioned though, once you have it up and running, you do not need to do anything more. At least until the drive fails!

Quite a few people are using Raspberry Pi's as a cheap file sharing device and there are a variety of fairly good step by step tutorials on getting it up and running. For example, look at this one: http://elinux.org/R-Pi_NAS. These steps should work on most distros.

Regards,
Stefan

To build on what propofol said, once I got an smb.conf file that worked, I pretty much have recycled the same Samba configuration file with appropriate adjustments through several iterations of my network.

So Im starting over since I have changed so many things on linux mint. I reinstalled ubuntu on my new server. I downloaded samba on my system.

I want to have a shared drive on a computer named main so all the other computers can see it and write files to it.

\\\\Main\\f\\

The instructions i am following say to do the following after opening samba

mkdir/home/username/foldername

However, I do not want to create folders on my server for all the other comptuers to access. I want the other computers to be able to create their own folders and document that can be saved on the server. Can linux be set up to do this.

I simply want a drive on the server that can be accessed by any win98 computer where files can be created, deleted or modified.

Why do I need to create a folder on my server? I don't want the the material that the students create to be put in a folder. I want it to be put on the hard drive.

Yes, you can set that up but not as an entire drive instead as a folder. You can have an entire drive partitioned where the folder only resides so basically that entire drive's space is available for this activity. That would mean that you'd have to allocate an additional drive, or partition your existing drive to appear in that manner. Unnecessary IMHO.

You specify a folder which is the top level of the share. It doesn't matter that the folder is /home/users/anyuser/sharelocation/toplevel, because when they attach, they'll be placed into the toplevel directory and then only be able to browse down any hierarchy from that point.

In SAMBA you also can set it up to have the users have write privileges. I'm thinking you can allow this for guests so that no one logs in (again private LAN) and then also the files and folders would all be owned by the same, generic user.

Here's an example of a simple smb.conf which I use, "common" is the share name which users see:

linux does not have separate drives like windows. Everything even DVD/CDROM and external driver are part of the tree and are referenced to the root partition which is /.

You do need to create a separate directory for the share. It can be a different partition than the operating system which is a good idea. Typically the directory would be created under /mnt or /media. The share in the smb.conf would then point to the directory (path=/mnt/f or whatever) and the share name [f], W98 computers would still be see the server/share as \\main\f. The share will be seen by all.

Typically users home folders are /home/username. Many tutorials create a /home/samba directory but as stated it can be located anywhere.

I probably should have asked this question when I first joined.
Once, I finally get my linux server all set up, will users be able to go to any of my win98 terminals and click on network neigborhood and see a computer called main with a drive letter f and be able to open it and drop files, modify files etc. Or will they have to type in the ip address or will they be able to physically see this on network neighborhood in windows. I do not want to have to configure anything on the win98 terminals. I want to unplug my old server using win98 and plug in the linux server as a replacement. Is this doable? Right now, I could unplug my old win98 server and replace it with a new win98 computer as long as it is named main and has a drive letter of f,all the win98 terminals could click on network neighborhood and access the f drive on the server. Is this doable?

Sorry, my last post i did before I read the expert replies. I will try to set it up and see what happens.
Thanks

They'll see the computer whether it be IP address or hostname, but they won't be able to do much with it unless they try to run Linux like commands for instance if they had cygwin installed so they could then ssh to the Linux station. File folders, no, you have to share those via SAMBA first, it's not natively installed and configured in pretty much most/all cases.

Another possibility too. Are these students beyond elementary level? Because some of them may be very helpful resources. See if any of them knows about Linux and also file sharing. You may be surprised.

rtmistler, you wrote

[global]
log file = /home/users/share/logs/smb-log.%m
max log size = 1000

[common]
path = /home/users/share/common
available = yes
read only = no
browsable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
create mask = 0644


What does

"create mask=0644"

do?

Yes, the W98 computers will see a main and f icons in network neighbourhood and be able to read/write/modify files.

They are highschool students. I asked them if they knew linux. A few said they have tried rooting their android phones. Some seemed interested in linux but no experts. It seems like over the past 15 years the number of expert computer hackers in my classes has dwindled. Most students seem to know a lot about social media configurations instead of programing and hardwrare.

Yeah, that makes sense. My daughter is a PhD with her iPod, but ask her to use MSWord or Excel and she can't do it to save her life.

Files created will have the priviledges 644, so you could change that to be 755 or 744. It's the RWX of newly created resources. Directories should have execute priviledges but in my case they don't create any directories.

Can i access the terminal in ubuntu without ctrl alt f1? When i had mint installed i could run the terminal and see the gui at the same time. is there a similar feature with ubuntu?

create mask sets the permissions i.e. read, write and execute when the file is created. linux uses different file attributes then windows and so you can set them with configuration directives.

samba is just an implementation of the windows file and printer sharing protocol (SMB/CIFS). There is lots of information about samba on the web.

Yes, you should be able to find Terminal in the start menu also if you start typing it, it should find it.

By the way, MINT, what you formerly used is Ubuntu, but to many persons' opinions, better because MINT cleaned up the Ubuntu GUI interface a lot. I do agree myself even though I use Ubuntu alot more. Hopping distributions is not going to be helpful. Done is done, but I recommend you try to get it working with Ubuntu now and at some future point if you wish to try another disto once you've learned the topic well, then that would be the right choice.

sorry, i am entering this conversation late but still catching up...
it seems like 16 years ago you set up static addresses (no dhcp) for all the windows machines. therefore any new machine you add (windows or linux or sun or mac or c64 ...) wont know the proper addresses/configuration unless you manually add it.

your network seems to be very, very peculiar so any new machine needs to be manually configured to your peculiar needs (e.g.- the new machines work on the general school's internet).

my suggestion would be to scrap your old network. if you teach a science/technology class maybe your students can be assigned part of the project to re-engineer your new lab.

Well no. 16 years ago they set up the network either static or DHCP and used Windows 98 networking to manage things, and it "just worked" because that is what Windows and ... NETBIOS(?) would do in a home or small office network environment.

I do agree that there should be some re-engineering here and also agree that if this is a technology class; a great project would be to have the students participate in it and thus enhance their knowledge and get them away from being purely social networkers. :)

None of my computers hook to the internet. And i never want them to. 16 years ago, i purchased 28 win98 computers. Originally back in 1998 , each morning, i arrived to work an hour early every day and i walked around to each of the 28 computers and loaded about 10 seperate files from a cd i burned the night before to each computer. This took about an hour each morning. Eventually I figured out i could connect them all together using network switches and have them read the files from one computer (pseudo-server) The computers still have some value and are useful. I have no interest in reconfiguring each computer as that would almost certainly lead to incompatibility issues. I could just get some older hardware and reload win98 and configure it like i already have it. And five minutes later I would be good for the next 16 years. However, I think it would be cool if I had a linux server for this. And it would probably work with newer hardware. I have tried upgrading along the way with windows but this ability to connect a room full of computers and share files was taken away after win98 and now only 5 windows computers can access the same exact file from one other computer at a time. Winxp, ME, vista will not allow. I tried using windows server and had it configured like my current setup but for some reason it was way too slow and very inefficient. It acted inconsistent. Sometimes allowing access and sometimes not. So, I want to try linux.

it seems like it is something samba would be able to do. i dont use windows so i dont know the specific install process but what i know of the samba-client is that it is a program to fool windows file servers into thinking the pc is another windows machine and allow it to connect.
and the samba-server is a service that tricks windows machines into believing it is a windows file server and attempt to connect to the share.

this level of emulation should be transparent but i assume some assembly(configuration) is required.

______________

can you please provide the output of:is the a router that all the machines are connected to. does it use dhcp / what is the routers ip-address ?

At the moment nothing has to be done to the W98 computers.

I have loaded samba on my server. Do i need to load samba client also?

is their a way to have the terminal and the gui open at the same time in ubuntu. I would like to copy and paste the output results of doing ifconfig -a for schneidz?

probably no need for samba-client. as i understand, its for linux pc's to connect to windows servers (you need the reverse).

i use fedora and its under the 'gnome menu -> system tools -> terminal'. not sure what window manager you are using but it should be fairly straghtforward. does ubuntu have a search facility ?

Take a look at this link for an example how to set up samba, http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials...ty-samba-setup

The key things I feel here are:

1. Do not try to mess with anonymous, too much unknown and potential for blocking because the server would tend to make anonymous not priviledged users
2. Create a user, smbpasswd is VERY IMPORTANT because it is the SAMBA password for when windows connects
3. Use brief simple words for username/password, like username: win98 and password: win98 easy to remember, noting that this is a closed network
4. Case matters in Linux, so Win98 is different than WIN98 as well as win98, remember that
5. From the Windows computers, map a drive letter to the SAMBA share, like map Z: or F: to \\<ipaddress>\sharename or \\<hostname>\sharename, note: backslashes used for Windows conventions
6. IMPORTANT: There should be a way to map the drive drive user a different username and password, look for that in the pop-up where you map the drive and then put in the proper credientials you specified for username/password
7. You can make the drive mappings permanent and when the W98 computers reboot, so long as Linux is already up, they'll re-establish the drive mappings automatically

schneidz replied

it seems like it is something samba would be able to do. i dont use windows so i dont know the specific install process but what i know of the samba-client is that it is a program to fool windows file servers into thinking the pc is another windows machine and allow it to connect.
and the samba-server is a service that tricks windows machines into believing it is a windows file server and attempt to connect to the share.

this level of emulation should be transparent but i assume some assembly(configuration) is required.

______________

can you please provide the output of:
Code:

ifconfig -a
route -n

is the a router that all the machines are connected to. does it use dhcp / what is the routers ip-address ?


the results are....

jo@main ~ $ ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1a:a0:c3:9e:34
inet6 addr: fe80::21a:a0ff:fec3:9e34/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:44814 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:9973 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:17740864 (17.7 MB) TX bytes:1520768 (1.5 MB)
Interrupt:16

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:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:996 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:996 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:127682 (127.6 KB) TX bytes:127682 (127.6 KB)

jo@main ~ $ route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
jo@main ~ $

seems like your ethernet card is not getting an ip address and therefore didnt join the network (and obviously there is no route if there is no network). please try:if specific network parameters are needed, only you (or your it staff) would be able to provide. maybe you can copy that information from the windows machine.

jo@main ~ $ sudo ifconfig eth0 up
jo@main ~ $ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1a:a0:c3:9e:34
inet6 addr: fe80::21a:a0ff:fec3:9e34/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:90924 errors:0 dropped:3 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24876 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:37396935 (37.3 MB) TX bytes:4460601 (4.4 MB)
Interrupt:16

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:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:2308 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2308 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:297780 (297.7 KB) TX bytes:297780 (297.7 KB)

jo@main ~ $

There is no it staff. No Router, Just me and 30 computers. No internet, just intranet and many Network switches connecting all the computers.

Honestly, im not sure what this ifconfig shows. what is it supposed to let me know?

Firstly you need to get that Linux stations network interface up and configured.

Seems like you're not using DHCP since the network did not discover any address. To set up for static you can use "Network Connections" should be in your menu if you start typing when you click on the Ubuntu symbol and start typing stuff. Run that, likely "wired connection 1" is your Ethernet. Select it, edit it, choose IPV4 settings tab, select "Manual" in the pulldown for Method. Then add an IP address which matches the addresses you've been using. Save that. I would also check the box to make the connection available for all users.

The ifconfig call should then indicate you are up and using the address you just programmed.

An example from my station, note my address, you don't have one at all:

You're not creating a folder, you're creating a share. The share is the place on the server where the Win98 users will create their folders etc...

I think we are on to something! My win98 server just crashed when i changed the ipv4 setting. the old blue screen of death. I think it did this because the name of my linux machine is "main" and my server is also "main".

Not necessarily, Are you using the same IP address? They must be unique.
samba may or may not be running so can not say if the crash was due to non unique net bios names.

Oh my goodness!!!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!Oh my goodness!

I can see my win98 computers on the network!!!!

Awesome!!!!

I played around with the IPV4 thing. What is that anyway?

Also, i can see win98 computers from linux, what do i need to do to see the share folders from windows

no matter what os you are using, you would need a samba-client to connect to a samba-server.
also,
you need to configure a samba-server in order for samba-clients to be able to connect to it.

edit: i misunderstood your question above... someone who knows windows will need to answer.

ipv4 is just a basic ip-address. tcp/ip networking depends on these routing addresses. before your server had no address therefore none of the clients were able to route to it.

rtmistler, you wrote

The command browsable above, what does this do exactly?