samba 3.0.14
 

I am a newbie of Linux.

My problem is,
I downloaded the samba 3.0.14 from the samba's official website as a tarball, and I installed it under Mandrake 10.1. I followed the instructions provided on the samba's website and the documents in the tarball I downloaded. Basicly, it's just moving into source's directory and type ./configure --> make --> make install

I didn't make any modification by providing any parameter to the ./configure. However, I found that I don't have a file call smb.conf. They say it's the most important configure file for samba.
And I also found a lot of file locations are different from what was said from the "official samba website" and the "document". I think they are not supposed to be created for misleading people, or are they?

I don't know what to do with the samba... or actually it's my problam of Linux?

Yeah, since touched Linux, I think the most impressive experence is dealing lots and lots of in-compatible. And a lot of documentations only seem to provide 80% of the correct information, the other 20% or more than that is out of date or completely ir-relevent.

going about the way you're writing here, you might not actaully know that you've probably already got samba installed... and if you haven't there will absolutely definitely be a wholly suitable version on your distro CD's which is utterly guarenteed to work instantly - including having a valid samba.conf file. I'd guiess that in your position, you don't want to even be thinkin gbaout compiling your own software, you've no real reason to do so, certainly not for somethign as standard as Samba.

smb.conf IS the most important configuration file, but the point is, when you're installing from source, you need to configure it. most smb.conf files would actually be able 10 to 20 lines long, each line being there because you want it to be there.

As for docs, well yes generally there are a lot of out of date documents out there, but there's just as much out of date windows stuff too really.

Thank you very much for your reply acid_kewpie. Yeah, it's just because of those frustrations since I tried to install the wireless network card netgear WG311v2, so I believe that I complained a little bit.

Pprobably I would try to create a file called smb.conf or anything. But just don't exactly know where I should put it ( or them ). Or I'll go to install the one comes with the distro package. But I remember it's a pretty old version and that's why I downloaded the newest version of samba.

Always check to see if a program is included with your distribution - Samba is automatically installed with Mandriva.

Go to Kicker > System > Configuration > Configure Your Computer and click on "Software Management". In the search box type in "Samba". If it isn't installed, then it will appear below. Just check the box and click "Install".

For setting up the configuration file, Google for "smb.conf" and you will find a number of sample configuration files. You will have to write this one yourself, but it is easy. HInt: use http://www.google.com/linux

There is also a forum dedicated to Samba at http://www.sambaforum.com/

HTH

Michael

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your reply.

I intended to use the rpm binary version of the samba which comes with the distro. However, it is a 3.0.7 version and I felt it was pretty old. There is also a rpm of 3.0.11 version on the Internet. However again, I still felt it's old and also sort of like to understand those install and configurations from the beginning. So I decided to stick on the second newest tarball version of samba which is 3.0.14a.

I went to check the article or it's a e-book on samba's official website:
Using Samba, 2nd Edition. In chapter 2, there are very detailed step by step instructions that we newbie need to compile and install a tarball version of samba onto the linux machine. Here is the link
http://us4.samba.org/samba/docs/using_samba/ch02.html

So, I sort of can run samba now on my linux Mandrake 10.1 machine.

However, I face, at the moment, two problems:

1. By following the instructions provided by the e-book, I can not get the swat up and
running by issuing http://localhost:901 or http://127.0.0.1:901

I am pretty sure that I have followed exactly the same step by step instructions from the
ebook.
And I checked the auth.log file in /var/log, I noticed these messages:

Jun 15 12:46:05 x xinetd[7927]: FAIL: swat address from=127.0.0.1
Jun 15 12:46:05 x xinetd[3399]: START: swat pid=7927 from=127.0.0.1
Jun 15 12:46:05 x xinetd[7928]: FAIL: swat address from=127.0.0.1
Jun 15 12:46:05 x xinetd[3399]: START: swat pid=7928 from=127.0.0.1

I think probably swat was triggered to run when I issued http://localhost:901 but failed to
bring up the GUI interface or failed at all.

There is a line
swat 901/tcp
in /etc/services file

And this is my swat file under /etc/xinetd.d:

service swat
{
socket_type = stream
wait = no
protocol = tcp
only_from = localhost
user = root
log_on_failure += USERID
server = /usr/local/samba/sbin/swat
port = 901
disable = no
}


2. I can run samba with smbd and nmbd and my windows 2000 machine on another end
of the network can see my linux machine. That was the sweet and interesting moment
that I enjoyed.

However, after adding a normal user account and the root account with the smbpasswd
command provided different password accordingly, when I tried to access the linux box
which runs the samba service from the windows 2000 machine by network neighbor,
only the root account can successfully make the attemp to see my shared folder and its
contents under the linux box.

This is my smb.conf:

# Global parameters

[global]
workgroup = ONEGROUP
netbios name = MANDRAKE
wins support = yes
encrypt passwords = yes
[myshare]
comment = For testing only
path = /home/someone/share
read only = no
guest ok = yes


Thank you everyone tried and try to help me. I will keep continuing my search for the answer. But I know, with your help, that would be much easier.

make your life easy
 

this is my advice
Webmin come with distro CD's
or
you can install from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/webadmin/
to access type localhost:10000
This can make your life very simple

Hi Somarasa,

Thank you very much for giving me such a good advise. I just installed Webmin and I feel very happy to have such a GUI administration tool. Though I knew the distro has provided me some kind of admin tool already, but I am very happy about this Webmin. I will try it to see if it will help me about configuring Samba and Swat.

If it doesn't, it doesn't matter because all the reason why I am here or using Linux is to broaden my perspective and leaarn. Thank you very much Somarasa and everyone.



========================================
at about 10 mins later after I wrote the aritcle above:
It's working!!! I can use swat and configure the samba server through Webmin!!!
Thank you.. I enjoy this kind of touching moment very much... Thank you Somarasa.

However, I still don't know where I'ver done something wrong that I can not run swat just by editing files under xinetd.d folder and /etc/services file. I think that would be left here at the moment. After I become more experienced, maybe one day I can have the ability to figure it out.[

Have you tried using smb4k? By default, it creates a directory "smb4k" in your home directory on first use. I moved mine to /home/samba, because I have several users who need to share it, but that's a lot of sweat most people don't need.

The defaults should work ok for you. Go to kicker > Internet > File Transfer > Smb4k and start the program. Clicking on Rescan will automatically scan your network. If that doesn't work, click on the "search" tab and either enter the names of your machines, or their IP numbers (i.e. 192.168.x.x). When they come up, then click on "add" and rescan.

If all that doesn't work, then click on "Settings" and "Configure Smb4k" Only change one or two things at a time and then test.

Your network will remain mounted until you specifically kill smb4k, or reboot.

Remember that if you have Windows machines on your network, that they will be expecting the server IP address to be 192.168.0.1, especially for connection sharing. You may be able to work around that after the initial setup.

HTH

Michael

There's nothing wrong with Samba 3.07 unless you find a bug that affects you that is in a later version, and anyway Mandriva backports all the bugs and security fixes to their Samba packages anyway.

No offence to you wildgan, since you're a newbie, but all you just went through could have been accomplished simply by installing the webmin package using the Mandrake Control Centre (since samba is already installed and working by default) :)

Half the problems people report on this board seem to have come about simply because they don't know how to use the software installation system and get themselves into trouble trying to compile and install source tarballs. I think its pretty impressive that you managed to compile and install something as big and complex as Samba wildgan, but it really wasn't necessary (althouth its probably thought you a lot about Linux ;) )

wildgan said he used samba-3.0.11 because he wanted the most up-to-date version, but there may be a library mis-match fouling things up. You should really try to use rpm's or deb's which were created just for your distro to avoid conflicts.

Before I ever started to play with sources, I bought the book "GNU Make" by Richard M. Stallman and Roland McGrath. I think it was about $6 USD from http://www.cheapbytes.com . I gained a lot of experience, and learned how to make an rpm out of a tarball just for my distro/machine (using checkinstall).

Of course you need all the right libraries and seldom-used languages installed. I don't do it now unless I need to install a program that mandriva doesn't have, and their selection is fairly complete.

My biggest headache in getting samba going were all the nuances involved in tuning smb.conf, the Windows shares, etc. And, there is a way to start samba shares in fstab, but from what I've read, it's tricky, and things are working fine for me just now. Before samba, I was using CD's.

Here's a link to a pretty good site for using webmin to set up smb.conf, Windows shares and a lot more:

http://jperkins.us/computer/home_net...up/index.php#1

Michael

There is a file you have to edit if you want to use SWAT to configure SAMBA.
In the file /etc/xinetd.d/swap there is a line that has "disable=yes".
You will need to make it read "disable=no" to use SWAT.

This is what I hate. All these secret things that aren't mentioned and you have to find out the hard way to get them to work....................

Then If you have swat installed then you will need to put 127.0.0.1:901 to bring up the swat browser.

If you're using mandrake the control centre has a GUI that makes this much easier.

Ahh.., thank you allllllll sooooo muchhhhhh for teaching me sooooo muchhhhh.

Yeah, I probably should have post this one thread in the newbie area since I am a newbie. However, I thought to be specific is not always a bad thing so I post this thread here in the Mandrake area instead.

And, using Linux, choosing Mandrake and installing Samba are all for the sole one purpose of learning. That's why I don't really really care about the level of difficulty doing those things might involve. I actually even more enjoy doing or building things from the scratch. So, building from the tarball format is eventually inescapable.

Because my the other network adapter, which is MA111 v2 used on the notebook, is not working now, I can not try out how my samba works at the moment. However, I believe with your helps, hints and advises, things should have been a lot different now. I will see that when my returned-to-base network card comes back.

There are still many things that I don't understand such as why my SWAT did not work before I use the webmin. I will re-install the os and configure everything again and again mostly according to all of your advises. I will first try to install the rpm format of samba of 3.0.7 version to see how easy it works. And I also want to see if SWAT is working for me by that kind of installation. Then I will re-install the os again ( actually I have made a backup with GHOST ) and install Samba from the tarball file. If fortunately, I can spot any difference between these two kinds of installation and find out the factors which stop the SWAT working for me at this moment, I can, then, have something interesting to post up here.

Thank you every one and Michael again, for sharing your learning experiences with me. Many thanks to you : )

=================================================================
However, Michael, after re-reading your reply, I think I really need to re-consider before I touch a source file because you even bought a book before you wanted to touch a source file. That sounds really serious man. But I think I will let curiosity drive me to anywhere first. That's just me, or I will be stuck in one place forever. :D

Hello wildgan,
Linux is really great for students, because it comes with all kinds of free educational software. Also, you can teach yourself programming without having to buy thousands of dollars worth of software.

I bought the book because it's easier for me to study a printed manual. Besides, like I said, it was only $6.

You can make a directory named projects in your home directory, and practice there - that is, not as root, and nothing installed to your system. That way, you don't risk damaging your system. Keep lots of notes.

Good Luck,

Michael

Wildgan,
If you Netgear ma111 wireless adapter isn't working I can help you with that
I have a netgear wg111 usb that I got working using ndiswrapper.
If you need help setting that up I can help if you are using Mandriva.