SAMBA Setup III

Summary:

• Some Samba Options
• Right-Click Sharing Directories
• Non-Windows Samba Clients
• Resources

Some Samba Options

man smb.conf lists several dozens of available options. I've picked out a few which might be interesting even for the casual Samba user.

Displaying non-English Characters

Samba allows you to configure code pages in order to display non-English characters correctly. The options are

client code page

character set

Restricting Access by Network

The options

hosts allow =

hosts deny =

Assigning a ~NetBIOS host name

By default, the Samba server uses the machine's DNS hostname as the ~NetBIOS name (i.e. the machine name which appears on the browse list). If you prefer another name, set the option

netbios name =

netbios aliases =

Passwordless Access to All Services for Specific Users / Machines

The option

hosts equiv =

>I recommend that the hosts equiv option be only used if you really know what you are doing, or perhaps on a home network where you trust your spouse and kids. And only if you really trust them :-).

See man hosts.equiv for the structure of the 'hosts.equiv' file.

Restrict Maximum Number of Connections to the Server

By default no limit on the number of connections to the Samba server is set. You can change this with the

max connections =

Instant LAN Messaging

MS Windows 9x comes with '~WinPopUp', a small tool to send and receive messages over the local network of SMB machines. You can take part in the fun, just remove the semicolon in front of the

message command =

'~WinPopUp' is a rather basic utility and not part of the NT/2k/XP line of Ms Windows. You might want to consider going for a more powerful equivalent like the freeware ~RealPopup.

Acting as a Time Server

If the option

time server = yes

Restrict Share Access on per User Basis

Using the

valid users =

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Right-Click Sharing Directories

Once the basic setup for anonymous logins works, you can share directories you own on your Mandrake Linux 8.2 system by right-clicking on them in KDE's Konqueror or GNOME's Nautilus. First, you have to enable this feature via 'Properties - Share - Configure File Sharing'. Once you have enabled it, you can share directories via the new 'Share' field at the bottom of the directory's context menu.

By default, these directories are set 'read only'. In order to change this, open 'smb.conf' as 'root' in an editor, scroll down to the entry of the share and set

writable

Make sure shared directories have the proper permissions (world readable for read only, world writable for read / write). You can adjust those permissions from the context menus in Konqueror or Nautilus.

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Non-Windows Samba Clients

A Linux system running a Samba server can be accessed by about every other system which understands the SMB protocol. Samba runs on every Unix operating system, including Mac OS X, and ports exist for a variety of non-Unix operating systems like OS/2 or even ~AmigaOS.

Linux clients can employ the methods introduced on the first page. Mac OS X clients can either use the Finder or - preferably, since much more convenient - the freeware SMB Browse which works very much like its Linux equivalents.
Non-Windows clients actually enjoy an added bonus, since they can choose their login name upon connect.

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Resources

Of course, this basic setup is just a start. Read the next two pages kindly provided by Mandrake Linux user Buchan Milne which introduce you to advanced topics like using Winbind or running the Samba server as a Primary Domain Controller.

If you run into trouble along the way, there's a very nice document on Troubleshooting Techniques (PDF) for Samba. This document introduces all the tools needed to diagnose Samba problems and ways to solve these problems.
Be aware that there's a somewhat confusing line on page 7:

>Both POGO and WIN-CLIENT should be using a network mask of 255.255.255.0 and a broadcast address of 192.168.255.

The broadcast address actually should be 192.168.1.255. I guess that's a typo since the author later on refers to the correct address.

More information can be gathered by installing the 'samba-doc' package. This package includes a complete book on Samba ('Using Samba' by Eckstein, Collier-Brown, Kelly) as well as FAQs, HOWTOs, HTML versions of the manual pages and documents on special features.

If you prefer dead tree manuals, check out the Samba books page.

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Next Item: Samba as a Domain Member

Related Resources:

man smb.conf

Revision / Modified: June 05, 2002
Author: Tom Berger

Legal: This page is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License. Standard disclaimers of warranty apply. Copyright LSTB and Mandrakesoft.