Peter, replies are inline with your text:
Peter Davis wrote:
I have a home network with two Windows XP systems and one Mandrake
10.0. (Wrong proportions, I know.) The Mandrake system is new, and I'm
trying to figure out how I can get file sharing to work across systems. I can't seem to see a WinXP system from Mandrake, or vice versa. A
couple of observations:
1) Samba doesn't seem to start automatically on boot. I have to start it by hand. Can I make it start automatically?
You can start samba automatically by opening the Mandrake Control Center (a.k.a. "MCC"), then click on System and then on Services. In the list, you'll see "smb" near the bottom. However, simply starting samba won't give you a lot of options and unless you rename the workgroup for the Windows boxes to "MDKGROUP" they probably won't see each other at all. You'll also have to add the users from the Windows boxes to the Linux box, and set them up as Samba users as well.
In the meantime, if you're running a firewall on the Linux box it may be blocking file sharing access to/from the Windows boxes as well. To make it a bit more interesting, if you set the security level too high when you did your install, that could also prevent the other systems from seeing the Linux box. Fun, eh?
2) Likewise for ftp.
By any chance, is this mandrake box going to handle your Internet connection for the whole network? Or is the FTP service just being activated as a replacement for Samba?
You should seriously consider using webmin for a lot of this. From the Windows boxes, you can access the Linux box with a web-browser and it not only makes it easier to set up, but since you're already sitting in front of a Windows box, you can also test Samba and/or FTP while you're still logged into webmin.
While you're in the Services section of MCC see if webmin is in the list and whether or not it's 1 - running or 2 - set to start on bootup. If not, you should find it on your CD's, or you can download and install it from www.webmin.com . You'll find a link for it in the upper right-hand corner of their page, and you definitely want the RPM version of it.
3) My HOST env var is set to my system, but when I look at the DHCP client table on my router, there's no name for the Mandrake box. (The WinXP boxes are named correctly.) So this suggests the Mandrake box is not declaring its name correctly somehow. Any clues on that?
You're best bet is to simply use Samba to provide a broadcast or netbios name as far as file sharing is concerned. However, as far as conventional network and domain names are concerned, if you're not running a full domain setup, you can name it whatever you want, as long as it's not the same name as another system on your network, and as long as all systems on your network use the same domain-name which should end with the term "localdomain", so for example winbox1.localdomain, winbox2.localdomain, mandrake1.localdomain.
4) I inadvertently specified an incorrect domain name when I installed the system. I think I've cleared that in the network settings, but I'm not sure. Somehow, the two WinXP machines are in different workgroups, and there's no workgroup for the Mandrake box.
The workgroup for the Mandrake box can be set in Samba, but you're better off to ALSO set up a new workgroup on the Linux box and the two Windows boxes. Add all normal users to that workgroup. For a simple network, you could name your workgroup as "davis" (for example), and on each box, you would set that as the workgroup for each machine, and for each valid user. Add each of those valid users to each of the three boxes, making sure that you don't change the Upper/Lower case of the users or their passwords.
So, if you have three users (ie; peter, paul, mary), you need to create each of those users on all three machines, then create a common workgroup for them (ie; workgroup = davis), and once they've been added to that workgroup on all 3 systems, then change the workgroup of the 3 systems as well so that they belong to "davis" as well.
Samba maintains it's own list of users, but it can also convert Linux users to Samba users. Again, this is easily accomplished with webmin.
Any comments, suggestions, or even good jokes would be appreciated. Bad jokes I can supply myself.
Thanks!
-pd
Hope That Helps?
Lanman
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