Hi all, I've been at this off and on for a few days and I want all to know I've read-and-read and searched posts (that helped me get to where I am now). I found a few older posts that seemed like the same problem but I had already executed the posted solutions so I'm really confounded.

I have a Windows xp box(WBOX) and a linux box with my printer. I'm using Samba to allow windows users to access their home directory on the linux box (LBOX) and hopefully(next) the printer. Right now I'm to the point where I see "Samba Server(LBOX)" under Microsoft Windows Network->MYGROUP (A sign to me that I can see that the LBOX is trying to let us know it's there). MYGROUP is the workgroup on both WBOX and the LBOX.

Now I have the same username/password setup on my WBOX, my LBOX with useradd/passwd and in samba with smbpasswd. Directions found in "Red Hat Linux Internet Server" from RH Press. One thing I did notice , when I smbpasswd -a username, the password is encrypted..big long hairy string. When I bounce samba(/etc/init.d/smb restart) it changes that string to all X's. Does that just mean it made a match and no longer needs the encrypted string? I've made the recommended changes to the smb.conf file per the book.

SYMPTOMS: When I click the "Samba Server(LBOX)", it pops up a u/p dialog box (eureka I thought) but no username/password seems to work. It says in the dialog box "Connecting to LBOX" so I figger I'm trying to login to the correct computer. When I type in the u/p it replaces the username with WBOX/username and prompts again for password. The books I have seem to imply that I shouldn't even need to enter the u/p, that the home directory should pretty much just show up in "my network places".

More info: I can ping in both directions and with both ip addresses and name from the hosts file(S). Both pc's can also access each other's apache servers(http). Do I maybe need to startup some service or something?

I feel like I'm pretty close. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for reading this far and maybe offering up an idea.

Cheers

Straight from the book, huh? I tried a samba config straight from the book too. Nothing worked until I commented out the "invalid users = root" line that every online reference told me I needed in my smb.conf. I can only guess that the initial connection to the server has to be verified with the root user account in order for Samba to create a machine account for that box. Unfortunately, root is listed as an invalid user account for Samba, as are all users in the root group.

You may also want to create machine accounts for your WXP boxes. I setup my smb.conf to create those on the fly when I add them to the domain, but that's for a domain, not a workgroup.

If this hasn't helped, post your smb.conf and the results of testparm.

Not sure what you mean by creating machine accounts for each wxp box. Here is the out put from testparm -s smb.conf.
I'm going to keep digging this evening, I don't want this to be my first to-do of the morning. I'm looking at some of the log files right now. Can't make much sense of the messages in there. Thanks again.

Again, that is in the case of a domain. In order for a machine to talk to a Samba PDC (Primary Domain Controller) the machine needs it's own "user" account on the Samba PDC. I don't think that applies to your situation, though. It might, I'm just not 100% sure either way.
This looks like a problem. What you're telling the server is that the only machine (or host) that is allowed to talk to it is the one with this IP address. You may want to change it to an IP address range instead, like so:
That will tell it to allow all hosts with IP addresses of 192.168.2.x and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.
You might want to make the printers browseable just so your Windows clients can see what printers are installed on the server.

I hope some of this helps.

Why don't you use FTP do share for other people

RE FTP...To me (possible ignorance exposure mode=ON) Ftp is transferring files back and forth. What I'm trying to do is allow users to direct update a file without having to first transfer it down. When I worked in unix shops, we always had the unix drives remote mounted so nobody stored much on their pc's. Also, this exercise is really just the forstep to using the Lbox as a printer server so I think Samba is still my best choice.

If ftp has somehow evolved over the 25 years I've been using it, I'm more than willing to give it a try. Old dogs.....you know the rest. I am serious(hard to tell sometimes)...if there's something I don't know about it, let me know. I probably just skipped that section in reading since I thought there wasn't much new there.

NEW2Unix...I'll give your suggestions a try tonight or tomorrow morning.....just got done with a long day of glass-blowing (my sometimes day job) so perhaps the couch and a cold-one is a more likely scenario. I'll followup.

I appreciate the suggestions a lot!!!!!!!!

I just have beeb used LINUX since 3 months and I think my experience is not enough for me to do all thing I want in Linux .
Hope receipt your suggestions .

I've made the changes suggested by n2l but I'm still stuck in the same place. I've searched all over the web and can't seem to find what my problem is. Close to giving up on it. Samba server still shows up in "my network places" but I can't login. I'm following the tutorials from 3 different books(I know..that's pbbly my problem).

So if anyone has encountered this problem, I'd love to know a solution.

Alright John, I had a little chat with Jerry (one of the Samba developers) and I have a solution to your issue. Samba is changing your string to all X's because of a bug in that particular version of Samba (which has been fixed).

Check the last field in your Samba password file, if the last change time is set to lct-0 then this is why it's changing the strings. An update to the newest version of Samba should fix this. If you look at the Samba release notes you should see these changes from 3.0.2a. Hope this helps.

Hi, I upgraded Samba to the latest version. That fixed the smbpasswd file from X-ing out my password...but I still cannot logon. The documents I'm reading infer that I shouldn't even need to enter my u/p. Is that any kind of clue about what's wrong? They make it sound like that drive(directory) should just appear. I'm running into the same problem when I try to setup a printer on the Lbox.

I have identical u/p on my XP machine and in the linux login and in the smbpasswd. I've double and triple checked that they are identical.

Anyway...I really appreciate the efforts to help me out! I hate it because I feel like I've done my homework here.

That's how I do mine. . .YMMV. I don't use the default [home] share, cause I don't think I've ever had luck with it.

arc1450, thanks for the suggestion, but still no luck. Can I ask you a question..Where does the user share show up on your windows machine? When you click on it, does it ask you for the u/p or does it automatically connect based on your matching wxp u/p? Thanks again for the help.

Mine auto-connects.

I just type in \\server\users and it's there.

I also map my shares on computers, though, and they're part of a domain with the Samba box as a PDC. IIRC, though, it doesn't really matter.

When you set up your Samba, you did 'smbpasswd -a (username)', right? And there's nothing in your /etc/hosts.deny, correct?