I can access all my Windows XP PC's from The RH9 server and I can ping the RH9 Server but cannot connect from my XP machines

I get the following


\\Localhost 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.

You were not connected because a duplicate name exists on the network. Go to system in control panel and change the computer name and try again

Is it something to do with my server being seen as localhost?

And If so how do I change the server name

HELP - I'm new to Linux/RH9 9 years of windows experience but very scared by this stuff.

well, make sure that you have users for samba, i am also fairly new to linux so i am not for sure.

And try hostname "*computernamehere*" to change the hostname

Hi
Have several users in samba each with passwords and windows usernames have tried several different versions of samba.conf as suggested by RH and others.

Do I need to do something to my XP machines?

I assume they are all in the same workgroup/domain?

Yes all are in the same domain.

Now it gets even wierder. I changed the hostname but Gnome etc got confused. So I changed it back to localhost.

Now from Windows I can see the new hostname that I created and the old "localhost" - I can oly connect to the new hostname

But here's the rub - I can now connect to the directory on the server that I created for that windows username but i cannot connect to any of the other directories even though I made them "allow all users to read/write"

I would like to use the new host but how do I stop Gnome etc from getting confused?

Sounds very much like a permissions issue. Remember if you do not have a domain or anything set up the box will be using local credentials by default unless specified otherwise. Instead of hostname just use \\ipaddress. Hostname the command changes the entry in /etc/hosts but not in /etc/sysconfig/network which is where redhat looks by default. I would suggest setting the samba server up to allow guest account access or something of the like if security is not an issue. Do you have swat configured? If so use it to set up anonymous access.

Good luck,
dav1x

I have sorted it. It was an issue of Permission.

First I created a new hotname called homenet

I had created several users and passwords, a shared directory and individual directories per user.

I logged on as root, navigated to Root's Home -pressed UP
clicked on the HOME folder and then right clicked on each USER folder to set permissions by individual and group for the shared folder.


It is all working like a dream and I have managed to synchronise files between my desktops and laptop.

And now I like Linux

Thanks everyone