*** Intro:

I am trying to get a Samba server going on home linux machine (Red Hat 9) named "boneset".

Having, as far as I can tell, configured Samba properly on boneset, if I look at it from a second linux box (named "yarrow" and running RH7.3, both on home network) with nmap, nmap shows all ports from 135-140 are closed on boneset.

(Samba is running okay on yarrow and from boneset nmap announces that 139 is open on yarrow, and in fact I can use Samba on boneset to browse yarrow.)

*** Question:

Does this mean that the ports have not been opened because of some security settings which I don't know about, or is it just telling me in a different way that the Samba server isn't working right?

To re-ask the question backwards :-) would having Samba running right automatically open port 139?

Obviously, I am asking if I should approach this as a firewall problem or a Samba problem.

I'm pretty sure you'll have to open port 139 in the firewall, if you have the firewall protecting your computer from tne network over which you want to share files. Certainly, according to my fw config file:

It's set to "no" on my PC because I connect to my other PCs via a different interface than my internet connection (the LAN connection is not protected by the firewall)

Yours,
Rob

Thanks.

So I will just focus on figuring out how to do this with RH 9.

Cool.

- Brian