I have switched from a router to direct access to the net. The linux server is acting as a DHCP/DNS gateway/router along with samba sharing. Before I changed from router to Linux genuine DHCP server samba worked fine, now I can see the server, but I can not navigate through it. The ip pings fine, I can access the net from the LAN and WAN side (being the server itself). However, when on any workstation (all I run it XP Home/Pro) all I can do is see the server, when I try to access it for shares, I get an error saying:

\\Linux is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

The network path was not found.

So what do you make of it, it used to work just fine. And like I said I can see the server just fine.

i dont think there is a prob with ur network.
only thing i can tell is the prob with ur 'interfaces' and 'hosts-allow' entry in your smb.conf file.

Do the dhcp-clients have the ips served by Linux? If you have enabled WINS on samba, does that have the current IPs and the corresponding NetBIOS names of the clients?

Here is my smb.conf file, the only share I'm trying to access is [richie], the rest my distro put in there upon installation.

# This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the
# smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed
# here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options (perhaps too
# many!) most of which are not shown in this example
#
# Any line which starts with a ; (semi-colon) or a # (hash)
# is a comment and is ignored. In this example we will use a #
# for commentry and a ; for parts of the config file that you
# may wish to enable
#
# NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command "testparm"
# to check that you have not made any basic syntactic errors.
#
#======================= Global Settings =====================================
[global]
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
load printers = yes
smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
null passwords = yes
map to guest = bad user
encrypt passwords = yes
printer admin = @adm
dns proxy = no
netbios name = Linux
netbios aliases = Linux
server string = Samba Server %v
printing = cups
workgroup = Workgroup
os level = 20
printcap name = cups
security = domain
max log size = 50

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
writable = yes
# You can enable VFS recycle bin on a per share basis:
# Uncomment the next 2 lines (make sure you create a
# .recycle folder in the base of the share and ensure
# all users will have write access to it. See
# examples/VFS/recycle/REAME in samba-doc for details
; vfs object = /usr/lib/samba/vfs/recycle.so
; vfs options= /etc/samba/recycle.conf
# You may want to prevent abuse of your server disk space, and spread of virii
; veto files = /*.eml/*.nws/*.dll/*.mp3/*.MP3/*.mpg/*.MPG/*.vbs/*.VBS/

# Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons
; [netlogon]
; comment = Network Logon Service
; path = /var/lib/samba/netlogon
; guest ok = yes
; writable = no

#Uncomment the following 2 lines if you would like your login scripts to
#be created dynamically by ntlogon (check that you have it in the correct
#location (the default of the ntlogon rpm available in contribs)
;root preexec = /usr/bin/ntlogon -u %U -g %G -o %a -d /var/lib/samba/netlogon/
;root postexec = rm -f /var/lib/samba/netlogon/%U.bat

# Un-comment the following to provide a specific roving profile share
# the default is to use the user's home directory
;[Profiles]
; path = /var/lib/samba/profiles
; browseable = no
; guest ok = yes
; writable = yes
# This script can be enabled to create profile directories on the fly
# You may want to turn off guest acces if you enable this, as it
# hasn't been thoroughly tested.
; root preexec = PROFILE=/var/lib/samba/profiles/%u; if [ ! -e $PROFILE ]; \
; then mkdir -pm700 $PROFILE; chown %u.%g $PROFILE;fi


# NOTE: If you have a CUPS print system there is no need to
# specifically define each individual printer.
# You must configure the samba printers with the appropriate Windows
# drivers on your Windows clients. On the Samba server no filtering is
# done. If you wish that the server provides the driver and the clients
# send PostScript ("Generic PostScript Printer" under Windows), you have
# to swap the 'print command' line below with the commented one.
[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = no
# to allow user 'guest account' to print.
guest ok = yes
writable = no
printable = yes
create mode = 0700
# =====================================
# print command: see above for details.
# =====================================
print command = lpr-cups -P %p -o raw %s -r # using client side printer drivers.
; print command = lpr-cups -P %p %s -r # using cups own drivers (use generic PostScript on clients).
# The following two commands are the samba defaults for printing=cups
# change them only if you need different options:
; lpq command = lpq -P %p
; lprm command = cancel %p-%j

# This share is used for Windows NT-style point-and-print support.
# To be able to install drivers, you need to be either root, or listed
# in the printer admin parameter above. Note that you also need write access
# to the directory and share definition to be able to upload the drivers.
# For more information on this, please see the Printing Support Section of
# /usr/share/doc/samba-<version>/docs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection.pdf
[print$]
path = /var/lib/samba/printers
browseable = yes
read only = yes
write list = @adm root
guest ok = yes

# A useful application of samba is to make a PDF-generation service
# To streamline this, install windows postscript drivers (preferably colour)
# on the samba server, so that clients can automatically install them.

[pdf-generator]
path = /var/tmp
guest ok = No
printable = Yes
comment = PDF Generator (only valid users)
#print command = /usr/share/samba/scripts/print-pdf file path win_path recipient IP doc_name &
print command = /usr/share/samba/scripts/print-pdf %s ~%u //%L/%u %m %I "%J" &

# This one is useful for people to share files
;[tmp]
; comment = Temporary file space
; path = /tmp
; read only = no
; public = yes

# A publicly accessible directory, but read only, except for people in
# the "staff" group
;[public]
; comment = Public Stuff
; path = /home/samba/public
; public = yes
; writable = no
; write list = @staff
# Audited directory through experimental VFS audit.so module:
# Uncomment next line.
; vfs object = /usr/lib/samba/vfs/audit.so

# Other examples.
#
# A private printer, usable only by Fred. Spool data will be placed in Fred's
# home directory. Note that fred must have write access to the spool directory,
# wherever it is.
;[fredsprn]
; comment = Fred's Printer
; valid users = fred
; path = /homes/fred
; printer = freds_printer
; public = no
; writable = no
; printable = yes

# A private directory, usable only by Fred. Note that Fred requires write
# access to the directory.
;[fredsdir]
; comment = Fred's Service
; path = /usr/somewhere/private
; valid users = fred
; public = no
; writable = yes
; printable = no

# a service which has a different directory for each machine that connects
# this allows you to tailor configurations to incoming machines. You could
# also use the %u option to tailor it by user name.
# The %m gets replaced with the machine name that is connecting.
;[pchome]
; comment = PC Directories
; path = /usr/pc/%m
; public = no
; writable = yes

# A publicly accessible directory, read/write to all users. Note that all files
# created in the directory by users will be owned by the default user, so
# any user with access can delete any other user's files. Obviously this
# directory must be writable by the default user. Another user could of course
# be specified, in which case all files would be owned by that user instead.
;[public]
; path = /usr/somewhere/else/public
; public = yes
; only guest = yes
; writable = yes
; printable = no

# The following two entries demonstrate how to share a directory so that two
# users can place files there that will be owned by the specific users. In this
# setup, the directory should be writable by both users and should have the
# sticky bit set on it to prevent abuse. Obviously this could be extended to
# as many users as required.
;[myshare]
; comment = Mary's and Fred's stuff
; path = /usr/somewhere/shared
; valid users = mary fred
; public = no
; writable = yes
; printable = no
; create mask = 0765


[richie]
guest account = root
writeable = yes
public = yes
path = /home/richie

Any new thoughts?

Your Samba service is acting as a Domain controller.
Are your windowsXP systems setup up to connect to the Domain ?

If you want Workgroup only, change security = domain to security = user.
Also, you will need to setup Linux and Samba usernames and passwords.

I had it setup for User authentication, but it didn't work so I was trying some different options. Can't I just enable guest access and have the user always root?

Back to basics, the server was working just fine until I installed the server as a NAT DHCP server, ever since then, it has not worked. I really need to get this working. Is it possible that I need to open a SMB port through my router, I don't know what port if there is one.

rich:

basically samba is just a NetBIOS variant. It allows computers not running Windo$e to connect to a NetBIOS network, using the port 139 (netBIOS uses this as well). You can check the firewall settings on your computers to see if they are filtering port 139. Also, you might want to play with your user settings. You might want to try adding the same username/password to every computer, or maybe refining the DHCP entries.
Finally, what may have happened...when you switched over to a server, your distro may have jacked up your firewall level. You might want to either look at the firewall settings in the control center, or maybe take a gander at the IPTABLES and make sure that incoming connections are allowed on port 139 if they have proper access. Though in theory, you can run the guest accout with the machine on root, it may not be wise. With your router, if you try to run DMZ, and someone who has too much time on their hands gets in, then they can use a guest account with root access...i dunno...you may want to consider that. To some people its a big deal.

I'm not sure how much help this will be...i am just trying to speculate what may be happening from my experience in Linux to Mac networking.

daemon

another thought...
from looking at your smb.conf file...it has password encryption enabled. are your other boxes able to handle encrypted passwords (well...not handle...more like is it enabled)? You might want to kick that setting to No...just for giggles

daemon

I changed to non-encrypted password and took out all shares except the richie share, it's too simple to not work. Is there a way to specify which ip address to work with? I think it needs to be my lan not wan. I'm getting desperate here. The thing that gets me is that the samba server was working perfectly until I setup NAT on my server and connected it directly to the net and had it setup for DHCPD so all the machines would take an IP from my server. Now I can see the samba server, but when I try and access it I get an error message of some crap and : The Network Path Was Not Found.

Please help.