This thread is to discuss the article titled: Basic Samba Network File Sharing

It is
testparm on mandrake 10.1

I followed the instructions intel I got to the

# /etc/init.d/smb start

line and I got the message

-su /etc/init.d/smb: no such file or directory

and now I cant get that computer on the Internet even can you tell me how to fix this problem. I am running Slackware 10.1

please disregard the problem about the Internet. it was a totally unrelated problem that I have now solved.

Good Article. However, you assume knowledge of "VI" (VIM)?. I got this far but how do I save my changes to SMB.conf? At the present, I seem to have completely lost it.
Regards
David (Newbie, of course)

Well, I saw the title and hoped that all my current samba prayers were answered.

Wrong!

As soon as I do I'm screwed. My system is nothing out of the ordinary. I only want to network a laptop to my main pc so that the laptop can access the printers (overriding necessity) plus if I could work out how I'd also like to be able to move/share files between both machines, but what I see in the "vi window" only seems to bare a passing resemblence to whats in the tutorial.

My smb.conf seems to have many more entries than the example in the tutorial, and hence I have no way of knowing whether removing any of the addtional entries my smb.conf seems to have, is likely to be detrimental to either machine/the system overall.

It seemed to start well, but that was it.

This isn't meant as a criticism, just how I see it from in front of my monitor! I'm unable to tell if it's just that I'm using a different distro or what.

Though well done to the author for having the "smarts" to be able to even write the tutorial in the first place - I couldn't do it. Just because it hasn't been of any real help to me, doesn't mean that other won't benefit!

regards

John

Hi John,

What you need is "Linux Installation and Getting Started Guide". This is part of the Linux Documentation Project (LDP). Website is: http://www.tldp.org/LDP/gs/node3.html. This gave me the right commands and sequence and eventually I got my Linux box into my home network.
Most importantly, it gave an explanation of VIM, the editor you need to use.
Unfortunately, with Linux, you need to do a lot of reading before anything works. It's basically like Windows 3.1, if you go back that far.

Good luck.

David (semi Newbie now)

Cheers David, I'll go and have a look at that link.

vi I can do enough to get by, but I'm not so happy with tldp (one of my "soap box subjects" is documentation).

The collation methods of the tldp, fine, but it's not so good for newbs who need the info put in a form thats straight forward i.e. "plain english". Hence it's my belief that just putting it all in a this, that, the other, etc provides the info, but so do man pages and that format is equally unintelligible.

It's the newbs who need good quality docs the most, those with reasonable "prior knowledge" can always skip the "hand holding" part(s).

Still, if the link gives me the basic stages of what I'm supposed to be doing, it may help some.

Again, many thanks.

regards

John

The article did NOT work out for me.
You only talk about servers: a Samba server (your Linux box I presume) and a Windows server. No clients?
You don't tell us what kind of windows (95,98,xp home, xp pro, some more) you connect to.
After setting up /etc/samba/smb.conf (vi is no problem for me, others: choose 'joe' or another easy editor), I want to connect to my Win XP-home box.
typing litteraly:

$ su
# mount -t smbfs //servername/share /mountpoint -o username=douwe

gives all kind of errors.
I can understand that /mountpoint has to exist on my linuxbox, but what to fill in for //servername/share???

I have another Win98 SE box, that I would like to connect to my linux-box via Samba.
Both Windows-computers and the Linux-box are connected to the internet via a Freesco router, and I can browse the internet on each of them.
I have no idea how to prepare a Windows box for the samba-job.
Please give some indication where to find this.
Indeed: I have more knowledge of Linux than of MsWindows(tm).

PS. also here the command is:
#testparm

Please cdabb, correct this in your story.

Can someone explain what 'mountpoint' means in the 'mount' command?
I believe that I have to mount the samba share before I can access it in Windows

David

I'm using Fedora Core 4, and the correct command is "testparm", not "testpram" as it says in the article.

its good n easy but i cnt see my samba shares in Win Vista

a mount_point is the directory where you want to mount. mean when you mount something in a directory then you can browse it and write to it.

a mount_point can be /mnt or /abc or an directory you create.

For exmple if you want to mount /dev/hda5 to /mnt the command would be:

mount /dev/hda5 /mnt

if you want to enter to that directory use: cd /mnt

Hello everyone! This is my first post. And as a sign of gratitude towards the Linux community forums that has helped me with a lot through lots of forum, I thought I give it back through this how-to. Please note that I omitted the use of SWAT here as I am using it in a an home environment and I prefer a hands-on experience.

1. Try to get a static IP address for your Linux machine. It makes a WHOLE lot easier. In Linux
i. Click on System > Administration > Network
ii. I only have one ethernet card, which is eth0, so I click on that one and click Edit (from the top menu)
iii.Check on ‘Statically set IP addresses’ and enter all your IP stuff (address, subnet mask, default gateway address)

2. Samba should be installed by default in Fedora 8.
To fully access Samba, SELinux should either allow access for Samba (which I am NOT doing) or be fully turned off (my choice.)
Open the following file using your favourite text editor:
/etc/selinux/config

Look for the following line:
SELINUX=enforcing
Change to the following
SELINUX=disabled

After you have done that reboot your system.

3. Next, we have to open a few ports in your firewall so that clients can connect. Logging in as root, open a terminal window and type:

system-config-firewall-tui

You should see a blue screen with red buttons.

i. You must set Firewall as enabled.
ii. Click on ‘Customize’.
iii.From the next screen, Select Samba as a Trusted Service. You must also check that your Trusted Interface is the one you using for Samba
iv. Select OK once you are done.

4. Now we enable the automatic startup of the needed services, using the following commands in Terminal:
i. chkconfig smb on
ii.chkconfig nmb on

Once you are done, reboot your system

5. Now, we are going to edit the smb.conf file. Open etc/samba/smb.conf using your favourite text editor.
Copy the following into that file (you may want to make a backup of the original file first. And when you are copying, paste over everything.)

Fadzly’s smb.conf

[global]
workgroup = homegroup ;put your own workgroup name here
netbios name = samba ; this should be your own too
server string = Fadzly Samba Server
; hosts allow = 192.168.1
announce version = 5.0
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_KEEPALIVE SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
passdb backend = tdbsam
security = user
null passwords = true
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
name resolve order = hosts wins bcast
wins support = yes
printing = CUPS
printcap name = CUPS
syslog = 1
syslog only = yes
; guest ok = no
; guest account = nobody

;[homes]
; comment = Home Directories
; read only = No
; browseable = No

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
printable = Yes
browseable = No


[fadzlyhome]
path = /home/fadzly
valid users = fadzly
write list = fadzly
read only = No
available = yes
; The following hides all the dot files and hidden files
hide dot files = yes
veto files = /.?*/

[fadzly]
path = /mnt/linuxbkup/fadzly
valid users = fadzly
write list = fadzly
read only = No
available = yes

Save the file.

Points to note:

i. I did not share my home directories so I comment it
ii.The fadzly share is a share on another hard disk which I auto-mounted

6. Now we need to restart the samba service for the new smb.conf to kick in. use the following commands:

service smb restart
service nmb restart

7. Before we can actually connect to the Linux machine from your Windows machine, we need to make a few changes to your Windows Network Configuration.

i. Firstly open your Network Connections. Right click the connection that you use to connect to the web (active connection) and click on properties.
ii. General Tab > Find & click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) > Properties …. next ….
iii.General Tab> Advanced button > WINS > ADD
iv. Under TCP/IP WINS server type in the local IP address of your Linux box.
For example : 192.165.12.101
v. Then check on the radio button > Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP
vi. You will need to restart your computer first before the settings take into effect.

8. Finally, there are a few ways that you can access your Linux machine.

i. Mapping network drive (Permanent):
•Right click My Computer > Map Network Drive > Choose a letter for the drive.
•Under folder, type in the hostname/IP address and share folder
.e.g linuxcom\MyFiles (if you have WINS support) or
192.165.12.101\MyFiles

ii.Entering address on the Explorer bar (Temporary Access):
•Enter your hostname/IP address and share folder into the explorer bar.
e.g \\linuxcom\MyFiles or \\192.165.12.101\MyFiles

There you have it! A simple (but not 100% secure) way of sharing folders using Linux

I try to use
"mount -t smbfs //servername/share /mountpoint -o username=douwe"

But, I have the following error:
mount: unknown filesystem type 'smbfs'