Hi I'm a new Linux user and could use some help. I have 2 windows machines and one Linux box networked together. I couldn't see my linux box from either of my windows machines until today. Don't know why today was different. My network was down and I rebooted all 3 machines and that's when the linux box appeared in windows network neighborhood. Problem is when I clicked on the linux box I got the response, couldn't browse the network. No problem when trying to connect from one windows box to another windows box. I checked the status of Samba and it wasn't running. I thought it started automatically on boot up. At any rate when I tried to start it with the /ect/rc.d/init.d/smb start it would not start. The response I got was nmd started but smb failed. Can anyone help. why would Samba not start. Thanks.

I had the same problem with my system when I first started. I dont know the reason off hand, I imagine it had to do with my configureation of SAMBA. Can you post or send (to my email) your smb.conf file. Also, did you try just started smbd from the command line (ie: #> smbd or #> /path/to/smbd ) Its not the best thing to do, but It works for me, and It got me out of htat tight spot.

I tried to start Samba from the command line with the /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb start command it said nmb services started but Samba failed.

just type 'smbd' without the quotes and try that. or do a 'whereis smbd' and type the path it gives you (for example, when I do 'whereis smbd' i get "/usr/bin/smbd", so when I type '/usr/bin/smbd' my SMB Daemon starts up by itself. It goes around the /etc/rc.d/smb start command )

--CJ

Thank you I'll give that a try. You don't happen to know why Samba wouldn't start would you and could that be the cause of why I can't browse the linux box from my windows machine. Also would you happen to know what are nmb services. They started but Samba wouldn't. Thanks for the help.

From my understanding, SMBD is the daemon for the SMB protocol. NMBD is the netbios daemon, and it what lets all the windows boxes know it's out there. Where I work, I only start smbd, and not nmbd. Its possible to connect to a Samba share without starting NMBD, you just have to know the IP address nad the share name, or you won't get no where.

Run the command 'testparm' and see if it finds any errors in your smb.conf file. That could be the first reason.
Next, user '/etc/rc.d/init.d/smb start' to start Samba, then after it fails see if there is anything in the system logs. type 'tail -n50 /var/log/messages' and 'tail -n50 /var/log/warn' to view the bottom of the logs. Notice anything in there (if you see something, but not sure what it is, post it here) Also, if testparm comes up with anything odd that your unsure of, post smb.conf also.

--CJ

ok let me help u out m8 i had a massive problem with samaba and have sorted and should be able to sort it out!

first do this run this command as root ok

service smb start

or

service smb restart

ok if it say ok next to all the service then u have samaba running ok next disable your firewall by either using lokkit or kfirewall

sorry i dont knwo the command line command for it, once you have done that restart your win machine ok and if you smb.conf file is right you should see the shared folders ok.

there are also various other such as

testparm smb.conf

i think which would test your smb.conf but im not if thats the right command but do what isad first and also post acopy of your smb.conf ile so i can tell u if u ave made a mistake any where ok !!

Snake

Thanks for the help. I've got Samba running but now when I try to browse my linux box from windows I get prompted for a user name and password. None I've tried worked. Do I need to set up a user account on linux like windows 2000 so I can get into the share on my linux machine? How do I do that? Thanks again for the help.

I belive your problem with it asking for a username and password could be if you are not using encryped passwords for samba, you would need to add a line "encrypt passwords = yes" without the quotes under the global section of the smb.conf file then restart samba. Then each user that will connect to your linux machine you will have to run the command "smbpasswd -a username" where the username is the one you will be connecting with, also you will have to have an existing user account on the linux box before using the smbpasswd, smbpasswd will give you an error on the first name you put in but it will work, It has to create the encrypted database I believe with the first name added.