Samba as a member of a Windows Domain
 

Hey Everyone,

I have a samba server (version 2.2.5) within a windows domain. I would like the samba machine (being used as a file server) to show up in the windows clients' network neighborhood throughout the domain. Right now, it is showing up as a workgroup - specifically the MyGroup workgroup, which I remember seeing as the default. However, in my smb.conf, I changed the workgroup parameter to the domain name, but it still is showing up as MyGroup. So, people can see it and browse, but I would like to show up in the existing domain rather than as a separate workgroup. Any ideas?

Thanks,

CJM

samba does reread the smb.conf file, can't remember the actual time period. You can restart samba to see changes immediately.

See the documentation at www.samba.org for info on a linux PC joining a windows domain.

I have restarted samba on several occasions. Also, I did read that it may take up to 48 minutes to propagate the info throughout the domain and I have waited the 48. Any other clues, ideas? I want the samba server to act only as a file server. It seems that this would be pretty common. And it is working to some extent, but the default MYGROUP is showing up even though the smb.conf is set to
WORKGROUP = <DOMAIN_NAME>

Are you saying that samba still shows up in the "mygroup" workgroup or that the mygroup workgroup still shows up as a workgroup that other computers see even though the samba machine isn't in it? If the workgroup is there with no PCs in it that has to do with several things about windows networking, unrelated to samba.

If it is a production network and you are not the administrator of the domain controller you should ask your network administrator about settings to use in your smb.conf. Basically you need to be careful what settings you use. Samba can be configured to act like a domain controller so it can also be set in a way that it breaks a pre-existing windows domain controller or so that the current domain controller prevents samba from working. With power comes responsibility after all...

If you have a domain controller and the admin doesn't have settings for your smb.conf then you need to read carefully through the samba documentation. If it isn't working correctly then you should first think about downloading the latest version of samba. AFAIK samba doesn't re-read the smb.conf unless it is restarted so you do have to restart the services to get it to recognize new domain settings. There is documentation in the source tree when you download samba that explains many things such as how to get samba to coexist on an existing domain.

If you still are having problems then some more info related to your situation should help us understand what is happening. Roughly how many PCs on the network? What OS is the domain controller? Is there a WINS server on the LAN? Did it work when it was in the old workgroup and you just wanted to change it or did it not work before?

Thanks to everyone for all of their suggestions. It is working now. The reason why it wasn't working is very embarassing. I had read countless How-Tos and the documentation that came with samba. I was frustrated that for all the reading nothing seemed to be working.

Here is what the problem was - I was changing the /usr/local/samba/lib/smb.conf file. When I saw that there was also an /etc/samba/smb.conf file, I decided to back that up, stop the services and modify that with what I had learned through the readings. After restarting the services, everything is as I had wanted - so I guess I should be glad that I understood the configuration, but I am more concerned with my oversight!

With that in mind, I do have several new concerns/questions -
Is there a certain rule of thumb that configuration files follow as to the directories the actual config files are typically located? Why are there two different locations for smb.conf? I remember creating a soft link during the initial setup - was that just to have an easy way to view the config? Is something possibly wrong with my install?

I will research tomorrow, but in the mean time if anyone has some insight on the above questions that would be great! Sorry for my newbie-ism and thank you for your help! I hope that I at least provided you with a laugh.


:)