Hi,
I have a samba server (RHEL5 or RHEL6) with default configuration. I just start the service. Then from other linux server I can see the shares by :
smbclient -L server_IP

It only prompts a password and by pressing enter it passes and shows server information and list of shares.
But when I try from a windows machine by typing :
\\server_IP
It prompts user/password to me and there is no way to pass it. I tried to set workgroup of windows machine same as samba server which didn't help.

Can you please tell me why it is not possible and maybe there is a way to do that without changing server configuration security type and guest account ,...

Thanks.

The correct windows command to see shares is the net command:
net view \\server_IP

You should also be able to see the shares from network neighborhood assuming they are browesable.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks but I get below error :

c:\net view \\server_IP
System error 5 has occurred.

Access is denied.

Could be many reasons.
I assume the firewall if enabled allows SMB traffic.
Is selinux if enabled configured for samba?
Make sure the host name is not localhost
Have you added a smb user via the smbpasswd command?

- Firewall is off
- SELinux is disabled
- hostname is not localhost
- I added a smb user via smbpasswd and entered the credentials when trying to open \\server_IP from windows and it is working, but my question is how come "smbclient -L" from other linux machine can browse samba server without user/password but windows cannot.

What are the values for "security" and "map to guest" in smb.conf?

The Windows client will attempt to authenticate using the username of the currently logged-in user. If the username does not exist on the Linux server (which is more than likely), you will need to map "bad user" to guest in Samba.

The Linux client will also try to authenticate with the username of the logged-in user, but perhaps you are using a username that exists on the server as well? In that case, mapping "bad password" to guest would be sufficient.

1 members found this post helpful.

security is USER.
I added below line
map to guest = bad user
and now it is working as I expect. The windows machine can browse just like smbclient -L command.

Thank you so much for your help