I'm pretty new at all this, but I've been plugging at trying to get Samba setup so I can get to shares on my linux box (running Fedora Core 2). I just reformatted my windows machine and used the linux pc for backup. I had no problems mounting a windows share (although I used the IP as it could not resolve the NetBIOS name) to initially back up the files, but I'm having problems bringing them back to the windows PC.

Here's my setup.. I've got a DSL connection plugged into a router to which both PCs are connected. Samba is running on the linux pc with two shared folders. In XP's network browser, I can see 'Samba Server (Pengus)', as Pengus is the name of the linux machine. When I try to access it, I get the following error:
Any suggestions? What settings in smb.conf might be affecting this. I can say that I'm using (almost) the default smb.conf. I modified the workgroup entry (naturally) and I set it to run a WINS server as per a guide's advice (this was what finally allowed me to see the linux machine in XP's network browser at all). DNS proxy was turned off by default.

That about sums it up. The smb.conf is utterly unmodified save for those few things, and since I'm not too familiar with all of this, I intend to leave it that way without furthur advice or until I figure out what I'm doing.

Thank you very much for the help. I can post smb.conf if need be but I figured this is probably an easily fixable problem that is not yet known to me.

windows XP -- edit %windows%/system32/drivers/etc/hosts

-- put in an entry for pengus

-- i assume that running the following two lines from XP 'cmd' -command prompt- return differently-

--i derive this solution based upon the 'network path not found' error in relation to the name 'pengus' = if you use the IP it should be found, else you have anoher problem...
= if you can ping the ip (which i assume you can), but not the name (which i assume you cannot), then you have a dns issue, and you can work around it by putting in an entry in your hosts file...

The NETBIOS name won't be found by XP since the NETBUEI protocol is not installed by default.

You (first reply) were right about being able to ping the ip but not 'pengus'. I can now ping both, but I'm still getting the same error.

Any other suggestions?

Do you have entries in the smbpasswd file for the XP users?

There's one, yes. I've also tried allowing public connections (but restricted from within my network, which only I use.

So you have an account on the Linux box that matches the Xp account, and the appropriate smbpasswd -a <username> command was ran, AND NETBUEI is installed on the XP machine?

NetBEUI is installed on my LAN. Still the same error.

Please paste your smb.conf file here.

[global]
workgroup = HOME
server string = Samba Server
encrypt passwords = yes

[Share]
path = /samba_share
writeable = yes


drwxrwxr-x 4 george users 4096 Oct 19 18:03 samba_share/


This is a QAD smb.conf file that works great on my XP, 2K, Slackware network.

I've tried variations of the last share definitions/rules, from nothing but 'path=' to 'path=' with browse and write options turned on.

Can you mount the shares on the linux box using the samba(XP) username--pass?

mount -t smbfs \\sambaserver\sambashare /mount/point
I think that works
If not man mount will resolve that issue.

you can also use smbclient, and nmblookup for testing samba

Yes, I was able to do this.

But you still can not access shares through the windows box, even with:
\\servername\share in the run box?

Right.

What are the results from:

http://home.onemain.com/~george100/mauh.gif