Me Again! I have installed the Samba 2.2.5 rpm on my Redhat 7.2 box and it is now appearing in Network Neighborhood in my Windows network. Whenever I try to access the Linux box from a Windows machine I get the following error message "\\Redhat is not accessible. The network path was not found." What Am I doing wrong here? I can ping back and forth no problem and the Linux box can access the Proxy and Mail servers on the Windows network over IP. I appreciate that this is at a slightly higher level than pure IP, but I'm really stuck on this one. I have used both SWAT and webmin to configure Samba but I still can't access Linux from Windows. Aaarrgh!!!

Step by step ...
1) Can you see your linux box on network neighbourhood from windows box?
2) can you post the result of command "netstat -tpan"? (from root user) just to verify samba is running
3) did you create shared folders on your linux box (samba conf file) ?

Bye

I can see the Linux box in network neighborhood on all Windows machines on my network. Samba is definately running. I tried the netstat -tpan command. I could post the results up here but is it worth it? I know Samba is running. I created shared folders on the Linux box using the SWAT tool. Everything else seems to work a treat apart from Samba. Where's that brick wall?

I recently had the same problem. In my smb.conf, I had

security = user
password server = *

but with security = user, password server should not be set. When I commented out the password server line, it worked fine.
-Brian

Thanks Brian, But if I look at my smb.conf file there are no lines about security or password. I did, however, set the security to user using the SWAT tool. I'm really stumped now!

It may be nothing is wrong.

Question - Did you set an SMB Password for your user? This is not done by default.

check the manual for "smbpasswd"

Could be a problem with firewall (RH has firewalls) see if the packets reach your machine.

tcpdump -ni eth0 host windowmachinesipnummber

and look for errors from SAMBA in /var/log/

/disclaimer dont know much about samba.. just usual error checking..

EMJ has a good point - I did have to enable the three Samba Service ports under IPChains on my RedHat 7.2 dist at home - iptables changes made for BOTH tcp and udp connections.

netbios_ns 137/tcp
netbios_ns 137/udp
netbios_dgm 138/tcp
netbios_dgm 138/udp
netbios_ssn 139/tcp
netbios_ssn 139/udp

have you created a samba user (smbadduser) for your win machine ?

smbadduser unixid:ntid

try webmin for admin of shared samba filez (much more easier this way)

here is a basic smb.conf file, with one share called shared. fit it to your config

[global]
interfaces = your local IP and mask (ie 192.168.0.254/24
domain master = yes
security = share
encrypt passwords = yes
local master = yes
workgroup = WORKGROUP
netbios name = server
log file = /usr/local/samba/var/log.%m
os level = 33
max log size = 50
default = global
hosts allow = your local network, and loopback (ie 192.168.0. 127.0.0.1)

[shared]
path = /path/to/what/you/want
create mode = 0664
writeable = yes
force group = wingroup
comment = shared filez
valid users = winuser
delete readonly = yes
printable = yes
wide links = no
public = no
force user = winuser

Thank you all. I've done it - you've all been a great help! I think (and remember I'm new to Linux) it was a culmination of Firewall issues and me having to generate the Samba password file. Still, it works now and I've learn't a hell of a lot in the past 5 hours. Once again, Thank you!