Samba Server in Windows Environment

[binarydumb]

Hello to all.

First off, I am a Linux newbie. I have worked with windows since the dos days.I have 4 PC's in my bedroom and wanting to learn to program in PHP/MySQL. That said, here are the 4 PC's I have hooked up on my 4 port KVM:

Desktop, Mandriva 10.1, Pentium Celeron 433MHz, 80GB HDD, 512MB SDRAM
Desktop, XP Pro, Athlon 2400+, 120GB HDD, 512 DDR-RAM
Desktop, 98SE&2k Pro, P3 1GHz, 80GB HDD, 512MB DDR-RAM
Laptop, Mandrake 10.1, Pentium 3 700MHz, 12GB HDD, 256MB SDRAM

I will be working primariliy on the windows pc's. The linux desktop will be serving Apache, PHP, MySQL, and act as a Samba Server as well. I want to be able to share a directory from the Linux Desktop so that I can access them from the other PC's. But I also do not want anyone else to view nor modify my files. So I guess that user authentication is involved. I have muddled around on the Mandrake desktop and was able to share a folder. But I can only view from my XP machine if the linux settings allow ALL users to view and modify. If I set it to owner access only (view/modify), I cannot open in XP, 98, or 2000. I must be missing something. Also, I cannot load SWAT on the Mandrake PC as well. When I type in http://localhost:901, I get a "connection refused when try to connect to localhost 901" error.

Help, please.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Tony

[messiahnet]

For this post, replace anything between the <> with desired values. Don't type your desired values with <> around them.

In order to access a share from a linux samba server, a few things must be in place. Mandrake probably configures the smb.conf file for you, but if you're wanting to know how to do it, edit this file manually. It's probably located in the /etc folder. So do a "vi /etc/smb.conf" or "vi /etc/smb/smb.conf" if the previous isn't there. You need to set up a share. The sytax is like this:

[<SHARENAME>]
path = <PATH TO THE FOLDER, EX. /HOME/JON>
writable = yes

That's bare minimum. Now, the permissions for this share are controlled not by samba, but the linux OS itself. Whatever you're logged in as on these Windows machines, there needs to be a matching user with a matching password on your linux box. I can't really explain it all in this short post (email me at messiahnet@kc.rr.com if you have any questions). But, to create a user type "useradd <USERNAME>" to change the password, type "passwd <PASSWORD>". Now there is a linux user created. You must now add that user to samba. Do a "smbpasswd -a <USERNAME>" and then a "smbpasswd <PASSWORD>". Now, samba knows this user and his/her password. To allow users to access a certain directory (we'll say your wanting to share /home/jon), you have to set permissions for that directory. I don't want to waste my time explaining because I fear that you may already know, but just in case you don't know how to set/view permissions, here is a pretty good howto on it. These linux system permissions translate directly in to what the windows user can or cannot access. If you say that jon doesn't get write access to the /home/jon directory, jon doesn't get it no matter what OS he is using. Furthermore, remember that the Windows password and the samba password have to match up. Finish all of this off by starting the samba server: "service smb start" or "service smb restart" if it was already running.

Like I said Mandrake, being the "user friendly" OS that it is, probably has ways of editing the smb.conf file and sharing directories and all. But this works. Hopefully this helps. Remember, feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

[MJanofsky]

Question for messiahnet:
How do you connect Windows XP Pro to a Samba PDC Server? If you know, can you please help. XP Pro seems to not want to connect to a NT4-Like server, only 200x.

Thanks!

Michael

[puntmuts]

http://nl.samba.org/samba/docs/man/S...TO-Collection/ is a good read for your problem. It handles setting up a more modern type of server instead of the NT 4.x server as well.

But to share a few directories it should not be needed to configure a complete domain controller I guess. The NT 4 functionality should provide what you want but I do not use XP . A simple configuration with some shared directories for my GF using a 2000 machine it just works fine. But read the HOWTO

[TheBigPhish]

Also, I cannot load SWAT on the Mandrake PC as well. When I type in http://localhost:901, I get a "connection refused when try to connect to localhost 901" error.

ok, well...as long as SWAT is running in initrd (is that what it is on drake?), you need the correct host name. UNLESS you set up your system to be called "localhost", what you are using will not work.

do this

uname -n

take the reply and use that in place of localhost in that URL for SWAT.

you're trying to log in to the wrong URL i think.


and a word to the wise, i would download and use WEBMIN, for your config stuff...because it pretty much can config anything on your system, and i've noticed it's nicer at setting up samba than SWAT is, altho swat gives you nicer stats on the system and is a tad more responsive.

[Giro]

I have worked with windows since the dos days

You mean microsoft, windows != dos.