I just configured SAMBA so that I could use a Linux file server at home. It works like a charm from the two windoze boxes, but one of those boxes is a dual boot system with linux on it. Needless to say, I'd rather use Linux on that system and save windows for just games. Hell, if I could, I'd put it on my laptop, but I *so* don't want to mess with Linux on an Alienware box.

Anyway, I can't access the files on the share drive from the linux machine. Note, that I can see them. I can even put new files on that drive. What I can't do, is read and write to the files that I put there from a windows box.

I set up accounts on both Linux boxes that should be able to access the files. Naturally, the account on the server has no problem with file access, but the one on the other Linux box can't read or write them. And I don't want to make them world writable.

Should I continue to try and use Samba for this, or just NFS mount the drive. And if I do NFS mount the drive, how will that affect those files when I try to access them from a windows machine after I've modified them using Linux? They're just text files, by the way.

Any advice?

Thanks

Its much easier to just use NFS in Linux. It won't affect the files in the directory. I have the same setup. I have a public directory that is mountable by SMB and NFS. Been using it for three years now with no problems.

ken

Hi,

You don't have to create an account on the client machine, when you smbmount the share, you've got to use the user/password defined on the server.

root@server# smbpasswd bar
New SMB password: foobar
Retype new SMB password: foobar

foo@client# smbmount //server/share /mnt/share -o username=bar,password='foobar'

I agree with ken, nfs is much easier to use, but I prefer samba since when a nfs share is not accessible anymore, then the process who tried to access the share defuncts... whereas with samba it just gives an error (as an exemple, using nfs to access my roomate's mp3 is not cool, since when he shuts is computer, xmms hangs until he reboots)

But, if your server is allways up, nfs is simplier and more efficient (f*!$^¨@g netbios !)

Oh ! another thing, samba uses well known port numbers (137:139) whereas nfs uses rpc (and so dynamical port negotiation) which is a problem to forward through a firewall (but does it make sense to accept file sharing through a firewall... sometimes yes, I think)

Bye

I did add the users on the server using the samba password commands when I set this up the other day. No Joy. I think I'm gonna try the whole NFS thing and hope that works

Thanks!