I have a very "vanilla" smb.conf file that I haven't touched since I last reloaded Debian (Lenny). After adding users (smbpasswd -a) & setting passwords, all have been able to map to their home directories from Win XP machines, with one exception.

One user can map to his directory on MY Win laptop & I can map to my directory on MY laptop.

I can map to my directory on HIS laptop, but he can't map to his directory on HIS laptop.

This was verified today as he was sitting next to me. Both of our machines were connected via Ethernet to the same n/w through the same hub.

There is no specific username info or user IPs in my smb.conf.

So far I assume it's something on the Win side in his machine. Anyone noticed a phenomenon like this?

Thanks,
Ron

What do you mean "can't map" ?

Is that "can't see the directory" or "can see but mapping fails" ?

If you are running a firewall program on the Windows machine, have a look there. Some settings might be user specific. I am not sure as I have not tried to connect to a Samba share with a different user account.

I do recall that when I first used Linux several years ago (RedHat 5.8) I setup Samba and it was working great. Then one day it quit. I tweaked Samba, uninstalled it, reinstalled it, upgraded it, compiled it, reinstalled Linux and after several months gave up. Then one day I happened to turn of my firewall, Zonealarm, for some reason. All of the sudden my Samba server appeared! Seems that an upgrade to Zonealarm decided to protect the PC from its peers.

Or... When you are on the other person's PC who are you? Are you logging on as yourself or is the "owner" of the PC logged onto his PC? If you Ron are logged onto Ron's PC as Ron and can connect to Ron's Samba share and Other's Samba share but Other logged on to Other's PC cannot connect to Other's Samba share but Ron can connect to Ron's Samba share from the PC where Other is logged into Windows - I thought I was going somewhere with this. No wonder Samba is confused. Might post you Samba config file for folks to have a look at.

Ken

By "can't map" I mean he can't "map a network drive" in Windows parlance from Windows File Explorer. When he tries, using the usual directory spec format (\\<host>\username) it won't accept the username/password. That is, not in one particular case. This is the same whether "host" is expressed as a URL or the IP address.

The firewall is the same in any case, & I can connect to my home directory on his machine without doing so as a different user.

Just one of those samba "features," I guess...

Ron

What I was asking is if he can browse to the directory in the map network drive dialogue.

If the directory is not visible it's one problem, if it is but it won't connect, then it's another.

It should be visible inside View Workgroup Computers as well, inside the computer concerned.