Re: [newbie] confused by Samba
On Sunday 28 December 2003 23:23, Merlin Zener wrote: Hi all, I'm having another go at trying to get my Mandrake desktop to talk to my WIN2K laptop. I tried a while back but gave up. I think I'm confusing the basic concepts here - I had the impression that I had to use Samba, but just now tonight I've just been reading some help pages and they seem to only talk about using Samba for windows users to log on to the Linux box. Am I trying to use the wrong tool for the job? No, you're not. Samba allows linux/unix and windows systems to communicate - in both directions. If you want to be able to move files in both directions you will need both boxes to be both server and client. On the linux box you must add accounts for each windows user that needs to access, making sure that you have the network name, user account login name and password identical to the windows account - and don't forget that it is case-sensitive. My logic would seem to tell me that I have to have a username and password set up on the WIN2K box so I made one, but I can't find anywhere in Samba to specify the new username and password. I found a Wiki page on Samba basics which says WebMin and SWAT both have methods for dealing with this, and are easy enough to use that I won't cover them. Well that sounded encouraging, so I installed Webmin. After much stuffing around and seemingly downloading the same set of files 4 times I got Webmin running [don't ask me how...]. But in the Samba Share Manager page the only thing I can see that is relevant is the link Edit Samba users and passwords. But clicking on that only gives me the message No Samba users defined - without giving any hint as to how to define them. In webmin you can 'convert unix users to samba users'. You will then need to check each user account and make sure that you have selected to use a password, and defined the password. The other way is to use a root console with the command smbpasswd -a user_name which will then ask for a new password. I did some more reading and googling without finding a helpful instruction page [man Samba doesn't help much, for example! LOL]. Before I go any further I thought I'd better check in with you guys - to get back to the question at the top of this email: am I using the wrong tool? [or trying to...] There is an excellent O'Reilly book called Using Samba, which is available for download. It is meaty, though. I used it a lot when I was learning how to set samba up. There is also a diagnostic set originally designed by Andrew Tridgell, to which I have added some comments to cover the fact that some commands have changed over the years. A copy is attached. HTH Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? In some of the following tests I have commented alternative commands that seem to be needed with later versions of Samba. It appears that nmb -L is replaced by nmblookup. DIAGNOSING YOUR SAMBA SERVER This file contains a list of tests you can perform to validate your Samba server. It also tells you what the likely cause of the problem is if it fails any one of these steps. If it passes all these tests then it is probably working fine. You should do ALL the tests, in the order shown. I have tried to carefully choose them so later tests only use capabilities verified in the earlier tests. I would welcome additions to this set of tests. Please mail them to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you send me an email saying it doesn't work and you have not followed this test procedure then you should not be surprised if I ignore your email. ASSUMPTIONS --- In all of the tests I assume you have a Samba server called BIGSERVER and a PC called ACLIENT. I also assume the PC is running windows for workgroups with a recent copy of the microsoft tcp/ip stack. The procedure is similar for other types of clients. I also assume you know the name of a available share in your smb_conf. I will assume this share is called tmp. You can add a tmp share like by adding the following to smb_conf: [tmp] comment = temporary files path = /tmp read only = yes These tests also assume version 1.9.14 or later of the samba suite. If you have version 1.9.13 then see NOTE 1 below. TEST 1: --- run the command testparm. If it reports any errors then your smb_conf configuration file is faulty. TEST 2: --- run the command ping BIGSERVER from the PC and ping ACLIENT from the unix box. If you don't get a valid response then your TCP/IP software is not correctly installed. Note that you will need to start a dos prompt window on the PC to run ping. If you get a message saying host not found or similar then your DNS software or /etc/hosts file is not correctly setup. It is possible to run samba without DNS entries for the server and client, but I assume you do have correct entries for the remainder of these tests. TEST 3: --- run the command smbclient
[newbie] confused by Samba
Hi all, I'm having another go at trying to get my Mandrake desktop to talk to my WIN2K laptop. I tried a while back but gave up. I think I'm confusing the basic concepts here - I had the impression that I had to use Samba, but just now tonight I've just been reading some help pages and they seem to only talk about using Samba for windows users to log on to the Linux box. Am I trying to use the wrong tool for the job? I want to be able to see the files on the laptop, so I can do some editing etc while I'm away from home and then transfer my work to the Mandrake machine without first booting into windows to do the transfer. Even better would be if I could get it so I could run Dreamweaver on my Mandrake box [using Wine???] so I could edit the files right there on the laptop, and continue on next time I boot the laptop away from home again. My logic would seem to tell me that I have to have a username and password set up on the WIN2K box so I made one, but I can't find anywhere in Samba to specify the new username and password. I found a Wiki page on Samba basics which says WebMin and SWAT both have methods for dealing with this, and are easy enough to use that I won't cover them. Well that sounded encouraging, so I installed Webmin. After much stuffing around and seemingly downloading the same set of files 4 times I got Webmin running [don't ask me how...]. But in the Samba Share Manager page the only thing I can see that is relevant is the link Edit Samba users and passwords. But clicking on that only gives me the message No Samba users defined - without giving any hint as to how to define them. I did some more reading and googling without finding a helpful instruction page [man Samba doesn't help much, for example! LOL]. Before I go any further I thought I'd better check in with you guys - to get back to the question at the top of this email: am I using the wrong tool? [or trying to...] TIA for your advice, -- Merlin Zener Piano, Synthesizer Thailand. registered Linux user number 328618 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] confused by Samba
On Sunday 28 Dec 2003 11:23 pm, Merlin Zener wrote: Hi all, I'm having another go at trying to get my Mandrake desktop to talk to my WIN2K laptop. I tried a while back but gave up. I think I'm confusing the basic concepts here - I had the impression that I had to use Samba, but just now tonight I've just been reading some help pages and they seem to only talk about using Samba for windows users to log on to the Linux box. Am I trying to use the wrong tool for the job? I want to be able to see the files on the laptop, so I can do some editing etc while I'm away from home and then transfer my work to the Mandrake machine without first booting into windows to do the transfer. Even better would be if I could get it so I could run Dreamweaver on my Mandrake box [using Wine???] so I could edit the files right there on the laptop, and continue on next time I boot the laptop away from home again. My logic would seem to tell me that I have to have a username and password set up on the WIN2K box so I made one, but I can't find anywhere in Samba to specify the new username and password. I found a Wiki page on Samba basics which says WebMin and SWAT both have methods for dealing with this, and are easy enough to use that I won't cover them. Well that sounded encouraging, so I installed Webmin. After much stuffing around and seemingly downloading the same set of files 4 times I got Webmin running [don't ask me how...]. But in the Samba Share Manager page the only thing I can see that is relevant is the link Edit Samba users and passwords. But clicking on that only gives me the message No Samba users defined - without giving any hint as to how to define them. I did some more reading and googling without finding a helpful instruction page [man Samba doesn't help much, for example! LOL]. Before I go any further I thought I'd better check in with you guys - to get back to the question at the top of this email: am I using the wrong tool? [or trying to...] TIA for your advice, -- Merlin Zener Piano, Synthesizer Thailand. registered Linux user number 328618 You are correct Merlin in saying you do not need Samba server to see files on your Windows Laptop. But you do need samba client. urpmi samba-client That is all you have to do. Now in the url line of konqueror you can put :- smb://ip_add_of_laptop/ and you should see the shares the laptop is advertising. Also if you install LinNeighborhood or komba2 (in contrib) you can have a 'Network Explorer' type interface to browse your Windows network. That should be all you need. BTW: If you have difficulty it might help to run as root :- update-alternatives --auto smbclient derek -- -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
