SME Server and Windows Xp

[Tore]

I have just installed SME server on its own and plan to use it as a web, mail and file server for my small network at home.

I have set the server name and workgroup for the domain and also activated SME to act as a domain controller.

However, when I try to set up my xp machine as a member of the domain, I get the message that windows is unable to contact domain controller.

Any help, links or suggestions are more than welcome.


Tore

[bries]

Have SME server running and use it as domain controller. Received new hardware this week (XP Professional) and can't connect them to network. Installed Windows XP Clients - Patch to logon to SME domain, which is located here:
http://servername/server-resources/r...winxplogon.reg
Tried both admin and root to logon, but no luck.

Will appreciate any idea,

Bries

[Roxoff]

You need to decide what level of service you want. There are two ways you can go here:

1. Just sharing files, printer, internet connection, maybe access to an internal web page for your lan, game servers, etc.

or

2. Authentication control, user access and restrictions applicable across the lan, integrated email, central management of the user base on the network.

The first one means you need a workgroup, this is pretty straightforward to set up, the only real gotcha is in the authentication, but once that's set up, you'll find you have user/group level unix controls over who can access what.

There are a good summary of what you need to do to enable the security systems in this thread here.

If you want option 2, then you will need to establish a proper domain. This is a couple of orders of magnitude more complex than a simple workgroup, and there are various ways to do it. I did a Google search to find something that would work for me, but now I have a Windows domain with a Samba server backed by a user database held in an LDAP directory (the LDAP directory uses Fedora Directory Server, which I'm seriously impressed with). The LDAP directory also doubles as an email contact database. If you want this approach, then I'm afraid you'll have to resort to using the samba website docs or Google to find the approach that matches what you want to do.

[bries]

Hi Roxoff,
Thanks for your reply. Our SME server is our domain controller and file server for some time now. The older machines are sharing a workgroup, but the new XP don't have access to the shared data folder. That's my problem. I thought that installing the winxplogon.reg patch would make life simple, but I don't know what I should do to connect them.
Thanks, bries

[Roxoff]

Does 'older machines' mean Windows 98 or ME? That will complicate matters slightly.

As the SME server is acting as a domain controller, you might struggle to make this all work as one with Samba. You can add samba as a member of the domain, and also allocate samba accounts for the older machine users, and that might get around the issues - i.e. have the shared space on the linux machine that everyone can access.

[bries]

No. Older ones are running on Win2000 and WinXP SP1. New ones are running on WinXP SP2.

Could you direct me to a straightforward manual on how to add Samba as a member of the domain and also allocate samba accounts for the older machines?

Thanks, bries

[Roxoff]

The samba website (www.samba.org) is a good place to start. What you really need is probably on the samba guide page somewhere.