I'm hoping someone can give me a hand here....

I've been given the responsiblity of getting the linux file server and W2K Server to share login information at my work. I have successfully setup this exact configuration in my apartment. The next step was to get this setup configured at my work but my problem is that when I try to add the linux machine to the domain (as per setup instructions in order to get winbind to work), it tells me the "net" command doesn't exist.

This frustrated me for most of a complete day trying to figure out why I can't find a file called "net" on the linux machine when it worked fine on my home machine. Turns out, the previous administrator had done all the updates to the linux box there. So I tryed the same to my own setup, and after they completed... boom!!! the net command is now missing from my own linux machine.

Details for softare: Mandrake Linux 9.1, Samba 2.2.7a, Winbind 9.2, Windows 2000 Server SP4.

HELP!! please!?!

For some reason I'm having a similiar problem...I know iptables is one of the commands I can no longer use regularly. However it still exists on my computer. Now, to use it, I have to type ./iptables instead of just iptables. It is the same with some other commands, but not with others. I have no explanation.

Research setting your PATH variable. As root, it's generally not a good idea to put "." in your path. If you're in a user's home directory and you type "ls" and the user has a command in their home directory called ls, it could potentially execute their "homemade ls" that makes a root shell or does something similarly stupid.

It might be a good idea, however, to put things like /sbin and /usr/sbin and other secure bin directories in your root PATH to make your life a little easier.

"It isn't a holiday unless Google recognizes it."

A quick google search produced these sites for references on setting your PATH variable in both csh and bash flavors.

csh PATH: http://www.washington.edu/computing/...earchpath.html

bash PATH:
http://linuxquestions.org/questions/history/85116

tryed the "./" before the net command... no difference

tryed adding /sbin and /usr/sbin to the path... no luck.

I'm not sure if you completely understand the scope of my problem. The net command is completely gone! as in it's no longer to be found anywhere on my system.

But thanks to me not really knowing the proper way of adding directories to the path, I can't login anymore to the system so I'm going to have re-install linux now... My only idea at this point is to do this and install all 74 updates (that were available) one at a time to see which one deletes the net command.

I tell ya.. I've been a Windows guy for most of my professional life and yes windows has problems, I don't deny it... but at least if it was a problem I caused, I know how to fix it.

Thanks for trying to help anyways..

I'm unaware of any standard Linux command called "net". It may be distribution specific or site specific.

This is exactly the way I feel about Linux.

Tim

A jacked up PATH has nothing to do with why you wouldn't be able to log in. That's a completely unrelated problem and you most definately would not have to reinstall because your PATH environment variable wasn't set right.

If you read the corresponding link I gave you on either csh or bash (assuming you use one of those.. most likely bash if you are unsure) it would have taught you exactly what the PATH variable does. To sum it up with my definition before I move on..

When you run a program from the command line by just typing the command name, for example, ls, it searches the directories stored in PATH for the program. If your $PATH has /bin /sbin /usr/bin and /usr/sbin in it, it will search it in that order until it finds a program called ls.

Now, as Tim stated before me, "net" isn't a command that's specific to linux. It must come in some package that either deprecated their "net" command in an upgrade and replaced it with something else, or the upgrade completely removed the package because of a security flaw or a package that your distrubution feels it no longer needs in favor of another package.. or at all. It depends what kind of "upgrade" you're talking about.

The first sentance in my last post was "Research setting your PATH variable." It wasn't "Add /sbin and /usr/sbin to your path". I wasn't expecting that to solve your problem, they were examples of what is in your average PATH variable.

When you're more experienced with windows, *of course* it's going to be easier to to fix your problems in windows. It's ignorant to assume you can sit down at any computer and fix any problem because you can do it in windows. If you put enough time and effort into linux, you'll get just as fluent.

Nothing you're doing right now is "failing". These problems are nessicary to learn. Don't give up, and keep posting questions and you'll figure it out.

I started off a DOS/Windows 3.11 guy, tried linux for the first time in 1995. It took me 3 months to get it to recognize the CD ROM through on and off playing with it. After that it took me another month or two to figure out how to dial up to the internet with it. Support and "easy" programs were far less available then than they are now. Keep at it and you'll see what it's all about.