Suse SLED won't connect to Windows...why?

watha · 07-21-2006, 10:34 PM

My setup worked fine under Suse 10. But now I'm using SLED and like it a lot. Except...I can't get my Linux machine to see my PC. I can't figure out why. I think Samba is running but I'm not absolutely sure, and I'm unclear on how to set it up. Could anyone give me a boost? Thanks.

EclipseAgent · 07-22-2006, 12:42 AM

What are you trying to do?

smb://computername.domain.name.com ? or a drive with NTFS in the computer?

What is the smb command you are using and how are you trying to access this "Windows" machine

watha · 07-22-2006, 11:05 AM

I wasn't trying any of those. On my previous Suse setup it all just worked. I just browsed my network, and the Windows machine appeared. Now...it doesn't. I don't know what I must do to get it.

EclipseAgent · 07-22-2006, 02:21 PM

What process were you doing? Were you using the remote:/ KIO? If so try turning off your fire wall and test

watha · 07-22-2006, 05:40 PM

Sorry for sounding dense, but I don't know what this KIO thing is either. I just ran Suse 10 and my network connection worked. I didn't have to configure anything. I looked for my Windows box on the network and there it was. My Mac as well. No problems.

Now I'm running SLED and networking doesn't work. More important, I don't know how to make it start working. There's this thing in YAST called Windows Domain Management. That's as close as I can find to the Samba Server control in Suse 10, but running it doesn't seem to do any good. I don't even know how to tell if Samba is working or not. Do I need to start from scratch, or what?

It's rather annoying. I thought the whole point of SLED was that it would handle this kind of thing seamlessly without a lot of configuration.

jschiwal · 07-22-2006, 06:13 PM

You might want to read through the "swat" manpage, and use the swat web based configuration.

Swat comes with Samba, but you need to set it up.
Here is my xinetd configuration:

Code:

cat /etc/xinetd.d/swat
# SWAT is the Samba Web Administration Tool.
service swat
{
        socket_type     = stream
        protocol        = tcp
        wait            = no
        user            = root
        server          = /usr/sbin/swat
        only_from       =  127.0.0.1
        log_on_failure  += USERID
}

Then have xinetd reload its configurations: sudu /usr/bin/killall -HUP xinetd

Now you should be able to open up your browser and point it to: http://localhost:901
With luck, you should get a password request from the browser. Enter in "root" and root's password.

Also make sure that the winbind package is installed. From the web status section you can restart the services.

You will also need to post your smb.conf file here. Since you installed SLED 10, it is probably different than before. It will be hard for us to guess if there may be a problem with it.

For example, are you using security = SHARE or security = USER or security = DOMAIN. You won't be able to use DOMAIN or ADS security models if you have XP Home edition on the network. Microsoft removed some of the functionality that Windows 98 had, to force businesses to purchase the more expensive XP Pro edition.

To browse the network, from your SuSE computer, look in the Samba Client setup in YaST.
Also restart the winbind service, and check your firewall settings. If the interface connecting to the LAN on the internal zone? If so, is the internal zone blocking traffic or not?

I'm not familiar what you use to browse the network if you are using Gnome. In KDE, you can enter smb:/ in the konqueror web browser. You can also enter smb://<ip address of xp host>. Also, enter your XP computer in /etc/hosts. Then you will be able to enter
smb://xphostname

There are also some tools like smbclient that you can use. For SHARE or USER level security, you also want to use the smbpasswd command as root and add your XP's username and password.

Also, install the "samba-docs" package. It includes a number of samba manpages and books. This includes the pdf version of the Bruce Peren's book "Samba 3 by Example". These books can help you trouble shoot what is wrong.

watha · 07-22-2006, 06:54 PM

Thanks for all the information. Now at least I know where to begin.

By the way, you say I should check out Samba Server under YAST. But that's part of the problem. That feature was there in Suse 10, but it's gone from SLED, for reasons I can't begin to guess.

watha · 07-22-2006, 10:17 PM

Sheesh! Do you believe this? I just turned off the firewall, and my network worked just fine. That was easy.

By the way, I like having my firewall up and running. What's the best way to re-activate it, but let local network machines get through? Thanks.

EclipseAgent · 07-22-2006, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by watha

Sheesh! Do you believe this? I just turned off the firewall, and my network worked just fine. That was easy.

By the way, I like having my firewall up and running. What's the best way to re-activate it, but let local network machines get through? Thanks.

Yeah, I just told someone else to do that in another thread. Here you may be intrested in this:

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/11952.html

jschiwal · 07-23-2006, 03:51 AM

You can configure the firewall in YaST. The SuSE firewall has it set up in zones. You can decide which zone a NIC interface should be in. Interior, Exterior or Demilitarized zone. If you have one interface connected to the internet, use exterior. The one connected to a lan can be interior. If you click on the "Protect Firewall from Internal Zone", then you can block some ports on the interior zone as well. Otherwise the interior zone is open.

If you Select Services, you can first use the drop down box to select the zone to work with, and then either add or delete ports.

There is a file called /etc/services that lists the services and their port numbers. Just to show that the people in the ietf have a sense of humor, look at what is assigned to port 666:
doom 666/tcp # doom Id Software
doom 666/udp # doom Id Software

archtoad6 · 07-23-2006, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Written by Thom Holwerda on 2006-06-28 12:58:31 UTC

Yesterday, Novell released a pre-release of its much-anticipated SUSE Enterprise Linux Desktop 10, actually the 3rd release candidate.

(boldface mine)

It also sounds like you are/were the "victim" of SLED growing pains -- one of the reasons I like to stay away from "release candidates" & other such.

Any chance you would want to revert to your previous installation?

watha · 07-23-2006, 05:55 PM

No thought of going back to Suse 10. I like SLED a lot. Maybe I'm a sucker for eye candy, but it has about the prettiest user interface in the history of Linux. It gives the Mac a run for its money. Another thing I like is that when you install apps, SLED creates shortcuts for them in the app menu, so you know how to start them up. The lack of this in Linux has driven me crazy for years.

No, it still has glitches, but SLED is a version of Linux that even the non-hardcore could learn to love. Plus...it's so pretty!

archtoad6 · 07-24-2006, 05:34 AM

Sounds like it's worth watching as a candidate for recommending to run-of-the-mill XP "usees" as an alternative to Vista.

ghys · 10-02-2006, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by watha

Thanks for all the information. Now at least I know where to begin.

By the way, you say I should check out Samba Server under YAST. But that's part of the problem. That feature was there in Suse 10, but it's gone from SLED, for reasons I can't begin to guess.

i just installed SLED 10.1 and i can't seem to figure out where is the SAMBA icon.
SWAT is running fine and i followed the info regarding the firewall. Anyone got a hint for me?

thanks

amlucent23 · 10-02-2006, 06:07 PM

Are you in kde or gnome?

Also, to fix your firewall in SLED 10 go to Yast-> Security & Users-> Firewall then click interfaces and change your NIC to Internal Network if it is not directly facing the internet (as in directly connected to your broadband modem).

if in gnome just click "network servers" after your firewall is configured properly.