~  CHAPTER 20:    SAMBA  ~

 

 

Samba is a powerful tool for allowing UNIX-based systems (such as Linux) to interoperate

with Windows-based systems.  Samba does this by understanding the Microsoft networking

protocol, SMB (Session Message Block).  From a system administrator’s point of view, this

means being able to deploy a UNIX-based server without having to install NFS, LP, and

some kind of UNIX-compatible authentication support on all the Windows clients in the entwork.

 

In terms of administration, you’ll get a short course on using Samba’s Web Administration

Tool (SWAT), and on the smbclient command-line utility.

 

NOTE:  Samba can actually been ported to a significant number of platforms – almost

any variant of UNIX you can imagine, and even several non-UNIX environments. 

 

 

Usernames and Passwords

 

against the PDC.  This means you still have two user lists – one local and one on the PDC—

but your users need only keep track of their passwords on the Windows system.

systems, while all your Windows boxes authenticate with Samba.

For sites with a well-established system for maintaining logins and passwords, it isn’t

unreasonable to come up with a custom script.

 

 

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Encrypted Passwords

 

Starting with Windows NT 4/Service Pack 3, Windows 98, and Windows 95 OSR2, Windows

uses encrypted passwords when communicating with the PDC and any server requiring authentication

(including Linux and Samba).

 

Edit the Registry on Windows clients to disable use of encrypted passwords.  The Registry entries

that need to be changed are listed in the docs directory in the Samba package.

Configure Samba to use Windows-style encrypted passwords

 

The Differences Between smbd and nmbd

 

The code of the Samba server is actually composed of two daemons:  smbd and nmbd.

 

 

Compiling and Installing Samba

 

Samba comes installed on most Linux distributions.  Nevertheless, like all the other

services we’ve discussed in this boot, you should be able to compile the software

yourself in the event you want to upgrade the package to a new release.

 

 

  1.   Unpack Samba using the tar command:
  2.   tar^xvzf^samba-2.0.7.tar.gz
  3.   Step 1 creates a subdirectory called samba-2.0.7 for the source code.  change into

that directory.

  1.   Within the 2.0.7 directory, there will be another subdirectory called source.

 cd^source

  1.   Before you run ./configure, evaluate the options that you want to configure for your

Samba installation.

  1.   Run the ./configure command with the options you’ve chosen for your Samba

installation.

  1.   Run make
  2.   Run make^install
  3.   Samba is now installed in the /usr/local/samba directory.

 

 

Starting and Stopping Samba

 

Most distributions of Linux have scripts that will start and stop Samba without your needing to

pay much attention.  To stop the service using this script, you would run:

 

/etc/rc.d/init.d/smb^stop

 

 

Setting up Swat

 

SWAT is the Samba Web Administration Tool with which you can manage Samba through

a browser interface.  It is an excellent alternative to editing the Samba configuration files by

hand, but don’t let it make you believe that the configuration files are complex!

 

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What makes SWAT a little different from other browsers-based administration tools is that

SWAT does not rely on a Web server (like Apache).  Instead, SWAT performs all the needed

Web server functions without implementing a full Web server.  This is mostly accomplished

by running through the inetd daemon.

 

 

 

Using SWAT from Other Hosts

 

If you used ineted, then you can use SWAT from an other host as long as it has TCP/IP

connectivity and a Web browser. 

 

 

The SWAT Menus

 

When you connect to SWAT and login as root, you’ll see the main menu shown in  page 455.  

Unable to launch at school, did not work.

 

 

Using smbclient

 

The smbclient program is a command-line tool that allows your Linux system to act as a

Windows client.  You can use this utility to connect to other Samba servers or even to real

Windows NT/2000 server. 

 

smbclient is a very flexible program and can be used to browse other servers, send and

retrieve files from them, or even print to them.

 

 

Browsing a Server

 

smbclient—similar to nslookup.

If you have multiple files:  use the mget and the mput commands.

 

 

Remote File Access

 

Smbclient utility allows you to access files on an NT or Samba server with a command-line

hybrid DOS/FTP client interface.

 

/usr/local/samba/bin/smbclient^//server/share

 

 

Allowing NULL Passwords

 

If  you have a need to allow users to have no passwords (which is a bad idea), you can do

so by using the smbpasswd program with the –n option, like so:

 

smbpasswd^-n^username

 

 

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Troubleshooting Samba

 

 

There are four typical solutions to connectivity problems with Samba.

 

state or you’ve made changes to the configuration but forgot to restart Samba so that

the changes take effect.

 

typically in directory names, usernames, network numbers, and host names.

 

configured to use them and the clients aren’t, or (more likely) the clients are using

encrypted passwords and Samba hasn’t been configured to use them.  See the docs

subdirectory and you may need to use regedit to change the Registry.

 

 

Summary: