Here is the deal:

- small network running win2k server, win2k client, and a few debian 3.1 boxes running samba 3.0
- I am certain the network works
- I am using workgroups, not domains, on windows side
- I am certain I have workgroups set up correctly on both sides
- I am certain that samba is running
- I am certain that I have user accounts set up correctly in samba
- I have the windows boxes set up with static IP, and I have my belkin router IP address set as the DNS server, the belkin router connects to a comcast modem.
- I am not running a dns server locally
- I have hosts files set up on both linux and windows

On the linux side, everything seems to work correctly. On the windows side, things kinda, sorta, sometimes, half-way work.

From linux, I can use smbclient to access my w2k server with no trouble, transfer files, the whole thing, no problem. But, I can not veiw samba servers from the w2k side. Sometimes I can do a search and find, and access, the samba servers, and sometimes not. I never see the samba servers on w2k server when I try view "my network."

Also, although I have writable = yes, I can not copy files from windows to linux.

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From my smb.conf:

- server string = %h server (Samba %v)

That was the default. I guess it's okay. Does it matter?

- dns proxy = no

I guess.

- ; name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast

commented out by default. I am really not sure of this one. I do not use wins (does anybody?). I do not run NetBIOS.

- security = user
- encrypt passwords = true
- obey pam restrictions = yes
- invalid users = root

I am fairly sure all those settings are correct. I do not use clear passwords.

- ; unix password sync = no

commented out by default. I guess that is okay.

# For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following
# parameters must be set (thanks to Augustin Luton <aluton@hybrigenics.fr> for
# sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Potato).
passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u
passwd chat = *Enter\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\sUNIX\spassword:* %n\n .

WTF? Debian Potato? Isn't that ancient? This was set up by default. I guess it's okay.

# SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
socket options = TCP_NODELAY

No clue what that does, or is supposed to do.

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = yes
writable = yes
create mask = 0777
directory mask = 0777


What's with this "homes" thing? Is it some sort of public directory? Are the masks set to give full access? Where is the directory? Notice that writable is set to yes? I can not write to it.

# create dirs. with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775.

WTF? Why 0775? Why not 0765, if you just want rw? Also, isn't this a sort of backwards way to set a mask?


# A public directory
[public]
comment = Public Directory
path = /home/public
public = yes
writable = yes
create mode = 0777
directory mode = 0777
printable = no


This a public directory that I set up. I can sometimes see it from the windows server - if I do a search. If I can see it, I can copy files from linux to windows, but I can never copy files from windows to linux. Note the writable parameter?

Any clues appreciated.

do you have DHCP running on your network? If it is the router, then it likely also serves as a WINS server.

Try enabling the WINS server on at least one of your debian computers running samba (it is a simple option in the samba configuration).

What WINS does, as far as I believe, is allows computers to resolve computer names to IP addresses to connect to.

I ran without a WINS server on my primary home network for years without any issues, until I tried using a linux server on it for fileserving, then the windows computers had a difficult time resolving \\computername to an address, unless it was already cached from some other network transaction.

Look through your samba config file, you'll see the option for WINS client and WINS server. Try enabling the WINS server on one of them, restart samba, and see if you can access them from windows or not.

On the windows box, you need to tell it the address of the WINS server. Look in TCP/IP configuration, the same place you would configure static IP. I believe it is on an advanced button under where you put in DNS server addresses. The same would need to be done in the samba configuration for the wins server address.

WINS servers in linux do NOT need to be configured with a WINS server address, since they are the server. It says this in the samba configuration file.


Most routers that provide DHCP also provide WINS services but:
1) if a computer, like your windows box(es) use static addresses, they never communicate with the DHCP server, so they don't use it for WINS resolution
2) if you provide DHCP from another computer, instead of a router, I'm not sure that it will provide WINS resolution as well
3) if you use all static IPs on your network, then you need to run WINS from one computer, most easily accomplished through samba.

I'm 99% sure this is your problem, I hope all works and be sure to let me know :P

Sounds good.

If you can get your DHCP server to provide the address of the WINS server, then you might not have to configure the machines individually.