Hi,

I have Samba installed on a Mandrake 8.2 system connected to two other systems through a D-Link 4 port hub and a Linksys Router to a cable modem. The hardware works just fine if all the systems are Win98 or WinME (I run both). I started with a simple smb.conf that I found on http://www.samba.netfirms.com and the simple file sharing works just fine. When I tried to implement Samba as a primary domain controller (PDC) I get two different messages when I bring the Win system up. The first is immediately after I enter my system password. It says, "No domain server was available to validate your password. You may not be able to gain access to some network resources." The second message happens when I try to open the network share in Network Neighborhood after entering my password. It says, "Resource\\LinuxMachine\IPC$ the password wasn't received." I don't know if the problem is with Samba or with WinME/Win98. I entered encrypted passwords = yes in smb.conf so encryption shouldn't be the problem, right?

Please help.

I just fought with something similar, although a bit less complex, and found that KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) policy was fasted and easiest when dealing with Samba.

The problem with accessing your Network Neighborhood sounds to me to deal with configuring your Windows machines to provide Linux compatible authentication. You have to make/edit an entry in your registry. (Start > Run > regedit) http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO-7.html about halfway down the page has the exact instructions for Win9x machines. Yesterday I also configured a WinME exactly the same way and it worked like a charm.

Again, if you can simplify the configuration, such as eliminating the PDC requirement, you have a much better chance at basic communications. I'm small with two windows boxes and another linux workstation, so security/authentication amongst my machines doesn't really concern me. I just want Samba to provide my limited scope (windows) workstations with an access to another world!

Also, have you created a user on your server with exactly the same username/password as your windows machine?

Hi cbernaut,

Thanks for the reply. I am a great believer in the K.I.S.S. method myself which is why I set up and ran a simple file share with the Samba server. It took a bit of effort thanks to the lack of Micro$oft documentation, but I did get through it. My need is for a PDC now that I have the simplified share.

I have already read about the encrypted password problems as I think I mentioned in my original post. There seems to be something more to it than the HOW-TO's or SAMBA docs talk about. Finally, yes, I setup a user on the Linux machine with the same password and even use the same password for the SMB password. The problem is that I set up a computer as a user and though it has a Windos password (all that is required for SAMBA) it is not being used either by SAMBA or by Windows.

It is really a simple problem, but I don't know where to find the information yet.