Networking RH Linux and Windows

Hello and a happy new year to everyone,

I operate Internet servers running RH Linux which I manage over ssh.

I am now installing an RH machine at home for testing, research and development etc..

Questions please:

1) Can I network my RH machine to my Windows based network? All I need to do is to be able to use the RH machine as a file server.

2) If so how is this done? By using Samba?

3) Although I use ssh, I would like to know whether there is also a remote client to access my RH server over Gnome and/or KDE or other GUI?

Thanks very much indeed.

Best regards,

Adrian.

Originally posted by apc1 1) Can I network my RH machine to my Windows based network? All I need to do is to be able to use the RH machine as a file server.

Yes you can.

Originally posted by apc1 2) If so how is this done? By using Samba?

Bingo. SAMBA is a lot more than just a Windows file server. You can use SAMBA for simple file and printer sharing with Windows computers, or you can use SAMBA as an NT domain controller (which is what I do at home; it allows all of my family members to log on to the same desktop, my documents, e.t.c., no matter what Windows computer they log on to). It's all up to you. The details on how to set up a SAMBA server are too much for thsi forum post, I'm afraid, but I am sure you can find tons of manuals and HOWTOs here at LQ and if you Google, as well as on SAMBA's web site at http://www.samba.org/.

Originally posted by apc1 3) Although I use ssh, I would like to know whether there is also a remote client to access my RH server over Gnome and/or KDE or other GUI?

There is a way for ou to use SSH X forwarding which will allow you to see the output of X-windows (i.e. GUI) programs on remote workstations. Kind of like Windows Terminal Services of VNC, but instead of seeing the entire desktop of the remote computer, you just see the specific program(s) running on the remote Linux server. You may also use VNC (and many flavours thereof, such as TightVNC) to access your Linux box remotely. Having said this, SSH (i.e. the shell) still remains to be the most flexible and powerful way to administer a Linux server remotely. The next "step up" are web-based tools like Webmin (for general Linu OS administration) and SWAT (for SAMBA administration), and finally the last step being fully fledged GUI tools. Keep in mind that closer you move to GUI interface, the les power an flexibility and control you have over your system.

The bottom line is: if you are serious about administering a Linux server, make good friends with the shell. Not necessaily because GUI tools "don't exist" or "are bad", but because the shell is the only "proper" way to do it. Just like in Windows the GUI is the only "proper" way to do things.

P.S. If you need to find any of the software of websites or terms that I mentioned above, you can simply Google search them. I am sure that the relevant sites will show up in the first few hits, if not the very first one. Google is very open-source friendly. Good luck!

Hi sewer_monkey,

Thank you very much for your reply

Looks like for now I will be staying with ssh while reading up on Samba

Best regards.

If you only want to set up a fileserver with Samba for a small home network, you cold read "Learning Samba by Example", avalable free at www.samba.org. Chapters 2 and 3 should give you the answers you want, with sampel smb.conf files. To set this up is _not_ hard!
Hans Poppe
**************
C:\DOS
C:\DOS\RUN
RUN\DOS\RUN

hpoppe,

I can't find any "Learning Samba by Example" on the http://www.samba.org site, did you mean "Samba-3 by Example: Practical Exercises to Successful Deployment"? If so you can find links to it & its companion "The Official Samba-3 HOWTO and Reference Guide" at Samba Texts.

However, I find this book pretty slow going for a beginner, there are also excellent docs at http://www.knoppix.net/docs/, if they ever finish their maintenance -- it's been down for at least 2 days.

Hello:

Once you get a little down the road, you may wish to check out the
OpenVPN project

http://openvpn.sourceforge.net/

It isn't trivial to learn and set up, but it has tremendous remote access possibilities.

VPN = Virtual Private Network

OpenVPN is a cross-platform (Mac/Windows/LINUX/UNIX) project that allows one to
open an encrypted pipe between two networks. Does what commercial VPN systems do, but
for free.

Once set up (I'm in the process of doing this now), my home network (with about 5 Pee Cees) and
work. Once the pipe is built I can use ANY protocol (SAMBA, TELNET, FTP, whatever) over the
link securely (it is encrypted with the SSL libraries) and compressed (using the LZO compression
libraries).

FYI,
Charlie

IBM do a great tutorial, you have to register but it is a good place to start with SAMBA



I used this info to help build a network at the school I work at and so far it has been 12 months hassle free networking.

Derek