I'm presently being deluged with paper about Samba. everything about Samba. Too much about samba! I need a real-life grep tool!

All my documentation is about samba server though. is that what I need, or am i talking more along the lines of smaba client?

Basically, I want to install Samba on my linux desktop so that it can be networked with 1) my other desktop that is windows, 2) the LAN that currently exists that has both linux servers, windows servers, and a whole bunch of windows desktops, and 3) getting my windows desktop to see my linux desktop.

I assume that the connections for all these scenarios are TCIP-based. Or can be TCIP based, and therefor we go with Samba rather than mounting hard drives or the like.

Correct?

So, to go back to my original question , would you then call my linux desktop a samba client or samba server?

and do i just set up samba as normal or is there something in particular I need to focus on , if we are not calling it samba server.

thanks.

When your Windows machines "see" your Linux or when your windows machines access a share folder or maybe a printer in your linux machine, then you Linux machine is playing the role of a server. It is serving a shared folder, a shared printer...

When you want to access a shared folder in a windows machine, your linux is playing the role of a client.

Start by disabling the firewall in your linux machine and configure Samba as security=share.

Go ahead and post any problems back here.

see'ya,

over lunch , I was told that the easiest simplest way to do what i want to do was to either a) network into a linux box that already exists as a samba server, even though no one is using it right now or b) set up a "network group".

Does this not make more sense?

(frantically looking in the indexes of all my books now.. .)

I think that setting up a samba server is not hard. For start, there is just 4 settings you must change in global section of /etc/samba/smb.conf:
To add a read-only share to your new samba server,
and start your samba server.

The firewall issue I mentioned before is more trick. Windows need the broadcast packets and several TCP ports like 137, 138 and others I can't remober right now. So my advice to shutdown the firewall, at least in the internal interface.

regards,

alright, but what about on the windows side? If I want my windows machine to see the linux box. I have to do something in microsoft?

I know you are swamped by the documentation but you have to check this site out. It lays out everything pretty neatly.

Tux,

alright. i've printed it out and added it to the pile.


what's the difference between Samba and NFS? (assuming NFS clienting can/does include Windows computers.)

You use NFS when you want to create a share between Linux machines.
You use SAMBA to configure your Linux machine to communicate with a Windows machine (initiated via the Windows machine).
You use SMBCLIENT when you to create a share from a Linux machine to a Windows machine.

I installed CentOS 4.2 (server) and installed the firewall. I set up my Linux side SAMBA via System Settings/Server Settings/SAMBA. The desktop installation did not have these options. I verified I could ping both my Windows machine and my Linux machine. I set up a password - using smbpasswd <username> on the Linux machine for the Windows user. At the Windows DOS prompt, I used the net use command to connect to my Linux machine. You can also use the Explorer/Tools/Map Network Drive option.

It may be easier, at first, to create a share on the Windows machine, then on the Linux machine, use the smbclient command - smbclient //<IP_of_Windows_machine>/<sharename>. You should be prompted for a password... if the connection is made and the share was setup properly. If this works, then test in the other direction.

Hope this helps.