So, I now have my NT box and a Win2k machine logging on to my Linux box, it can see the share directory and even see the homes directory I set up. (ie each machine sees its home/username directory that are set up on the Linux box when you create a new user.)

This has taken a great deal of pain and suffering! <g> I thought the pain and suffering were over, but apparently not as the Windows 95 and 98 machines won't log on - and indeed won't even see the shares (which I'm sure they would previously).

Going through Network Neighbourhood, when I click on my Linux machine, it asks you to supply a password and tries to connect to

\\Linuxbox\IPC$

If I do:

net view

from a 9x machine it sees the Linuxbox among the other machines on the network, but if I try:

net view \\Linuxbox

it's having none of it!

Is there enough info there for anyone to know what might be going on?

So damn close now!

Cheers,

Rob.

Have you set up any shares on the linux box?

How are you sharing them (share/user/server)?

>> Have you set up any shares on the linux box? <<

Yes, and that seems to work because the NT box and the Win 2k server can read from and write to the share directories. They can even get access to their "homes" directories. :-)

>> How are you sharing them (share/user/server)? <<

user.

For some reason, smbpasswd won't let me add passwords for a new (pretend) user I've added, or modifiy the smb password for the Win 9x boxes. I wonder whether this non accesss for the 9x machines is something to do with the smb password and whether there's something else I did for the NT / Win 2k machines I've forgotten about!

All very frustrating!

Cheers,

Rob

I am having no problem doing this.


for each user create a unix account,

passwd user

they do not need a shell if you don't want them too,
just leave off the /bin/bash in /etc/passwd


then smbadduser sambaname:unixname

when you setup windows for networking you will get a networking prompt.

put in the samba username and password

It sounds like you have done everything except the networking login.

this has to be done or it will not work.

if you are not getting a prompt then that's your problem.

goto start logoff user...

then you should get a prompt for a userneme and password.


as far as samba is concerned as long as you send a valid username and password it will give you the homes and other browsable folders


If you still get nothing it may be a browser problem.

or you may see \\server\IPC$

in explorer location bar type this

\\server\share


if the username password do not match samba will prompt for password only this is the problem with win98, you will have to login to windows 98 with the valid username.

for win2k it will prompt for both username and password when a valid machine tries to access another users folder.

check the cache for a browse list

/var/cache/samba/browse.dat

if your samba server is not the master put the os level at 65

use smbclient -L to check machines to see if they have a browse list, one of them is maybe fighting to be master.

David,

Thanks very much for your help. Unfortunately, I don't have smbadduser with my Samba package for some reason. I'm buggered if I can suss out how to get it. I've tried an earlier RPM with it in, but the RPM manager says sod off, you've already got Samba installed. I even downloaded the script and put it in /usr/bin but it just tells me it's a bad interpreter.

I still don't really understand why it works for Win NT/2000 but not 9x! I have set up my Micro$oft networking name to be the same as Unix account name.

After having deleted the Wind*ws account names and groups from the Linux machine, I managed to enter:

adduser "username"
passwd "username"
and
smbpasswd -a "username"

Which again worked for the NT/2000 (at least it let me log on to the home directory, but not the share I set up - says that's an invalid password too!) but not for the 9x machines... This is what really puzzles me. Am I being dense?!

Cheers,

Rob.