I have posted on some linux forums to get help, but I know the STW hive mind is all powerful so I thought I’d have a go here…

I have 3 machines in my little business network, 2 windows xp 64 and one linux f13. The two windows machines found each other easily, I have installed samba on the linux box and I really want to be able to have the linux box in my network without the shenanigans of passwords and the like. Can anyone help me.
I have read lots of stuff on the samba.org site and elswhere. I am now a bit frazzled, and don’t know any more than I did. I really just want this to be simple otherwise linux is going to get binned and I am going back to windows for ever..

You can open up the permissions on the SAMBA box if you’re not bothered about security and all that malarkey.

Setting the value of “security level” to “share” in smb.conf will be a good start.

Have you just got a single share on the linux box?

My smb conf is currently this (although its created by me so will likely be just a load of rubbish):

[global]
workgroup = toys19
; security = share
; server string = samba 3.3.2-0.33.fc11
; encrypt passwords = no
guest ok = yes
; guest account = nobody
; server string = samba 3.5.6-69.fc13
security = share
encrypt passwords = no

[z]
comment = z on windy
path = /home/windy/Desktop/from_wendy/z/
read only = no
create mask = 0777
directory mask = 0777

[WINDY]
path = /home/windy/
read only = no

Maybe it’s time to go back a step – what are you trying to do?

I just want a windows style share of the data I have on my linux box. So I want to be able to copy/cut and paste files directories etc from one machine to another easily. So I can open network neigbourhood in the linux machine and find the the windows machines and create, copy and delete files backwards and forwards.. Same on the windows machines etc..

It is a very simple thing to do in windows to get two windows machines to talk to each other, no passwords or extra users, it takes seconds. I’ve been trying on and off to do this for about a month with samba and I am fed up with it..

EDIT -essentially the linux box has 2tb of data and is a storage machine, the other two machines don’t store anything other than the files they are working on.

So, you don’t really need the Linux box to see anything on the Windows machines then, do you?

I think I do, if I’m on the linux box I might copy a file to or from one of the windows machines.

I just want what I perceive to be normal file operations between the 3 machines. I need both windows and linux boxes as they run certain types of software that is not available in the other flavours.

Personally I’d run sshd on the Linux box, and WinSCP to do the copies – I reckon it’d be quicker than SMB 1 too (assuming the files are largeish). But I’m used to using ssh for whatever I possibly can.

An example smb.conf HERE that may be of help.

What distro are you using? If it’s ubuntu then have you followed these guides?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Samba

edit – I also use ssh and scp where I can, it’s just easier!

Share the drive/folder in the Windows machine, using as low a security level as you can (if you can use no password, that’d be great). Once you’ve shared it on the Windows machine, go to your Linux box.

Then as root (or sudo)

mkdir /mnt/Windows1
mount -t cifs \\<windows box name>\<share name> -o username=blah -o password=blah /mnt/Windows1

The username/password bit should be optional if you’ve managed to share the windows drive without passwords, if not then you’ll need the appropriate information. Once it’s mounted, you should be able to browse the filesystem on Linux.

Someone with more experience may well see flaws in what I’m trying to do (Cougar, where are you!?) 🙂

sorry using fedora 13. I have looked at that ubuntu guide and it just does not seem to work on my machine.. ( I know the difference between sudo and Su for example)

woody2000 – tried that doesnt work..

wierdly on one of the windows machines it can see a samba share – but inside it just has the shared directories that are on that windows machine..

whilst you’re setting up samba – its a good idea to add a recycle bin – so that if you delete anything – its put in a hidden folder and not just removed (which is normal for linux machines)

My current setup – which i’ve used for ubuntu, rhel and mandriva
used for a test web development server – so each user can have their own development enviroment – which is central and easier to backup (svn’d also)

It’s been tweaked to allow windows xp through to windows 7 and macs to view the shares so – you could try using the whole config and then thin it back to get what you want…

remember you dont necessarily need to restart samba after you change the conf file as it reloads itself

[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
netbios name = LINUX SERVER
server string = LINUX SERVER – Samba Server (Ubuntu Server 10.04)
map to guest = Bad User
guest account = nobody
passdb backend = tdbsam
obey pam restrictions = yes
invalid users = root
log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
max log size = 50
socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_SNDBUF=8192 SO_RCVBUF=8192
preferred master = no
domain master = no
local master = no
os level = 0
dns proxy = no
ldap ssl = No
winbind uid = 16777216-33554431
winbind gid = 16777216-33554431
guest ok = yes
guest only = yes
cups options = raw
hide dot files = No
hide special files = Yes
vfs objects = recycle
recycle:keeptree = yes
recycle:versions = yes
recycle:touch = yes
recycle:maxsize = 0
recycle:exclude_dir = /var/general
restrict anonymous = no
load printers = no
show add printer wizard = no
acl compatibility = winnt
null passwords = yes
wins support = Yes
read raw = No
write raw = Yes
max xmit = 131072
use sendfile = Yes
read time = 15
getwd cache = Yes
oplocks = Yes
create mask = 0644
force create mode = 0600
security mask = 0555
force security mode = 0600
smb ports = 139
strict locking = no
ntlm auth = YES
lanman auth = YES
client ntlmv2 auth = yes

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /varr/spool/samba
guest ok = No
printable = Yes
browseable = No

[EXAMPLE SHARE]
comment = Example Share
path = /var/www/example
read only = no
case sensitive = No
hosts allow = 192.168.0.16 192.168.0.26 192.168.0.28 127.

on this example I am using a linux user called nobody of nogroup – you may need to create this

Just a thought, is iptables running?

iptables is runnign but ip6tables wasn’t, it is now.. made no difference..

It shouldn’t be – that’s your firewall. I would stop it and see if it helps, then add the exclusions necessary for samba.

service iptables stop

should do it.

still no joy, damn and blast. I have decided to upgrade to fedora 15 as I’m told there are better samba tools, so I shall report back later. Thanks you all for your advice, it is very much appreciated.

Right I have upgraded to f15- looks nice. Still doesnt effing work.

Do a chkconfig –list and see if samba is up (smb service).

Fedora has a nice graphical tool to manage it in system > administration assuming you have a gui running. Should be easy to set up a share of some sort even if you have perms issues connecting.
Get stuck into smb.conf when you care 🙂

Do a netstat -nao | grep 139 to see if owt is listening (try 445 as well instead of 139)

Check iptables is still down 🙂 (for testing only of course)

Are you using ‘Simple File Sharing’ on the XP boxes? I honestly don’t know whether it’d make a difference, but my instinct would be to switch it off and configure manually.

chkconfig gives this

smb 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

and

[root@localhost /]# netstat -nao | grep 139
tcp 0 0 :::139 :::* LISTEN off (0.00/0/0)
[root@localhost /]# netstat -nao | grep 445
tcp 0 0 :::445 :::* LISTEN off (0.00/0/0)

and I did this

[root@localhost /]# service iptables stop
Stopping iptables (via systemctl): [ OK ]
[root@localhost /]# service iptables status
Table: filter
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
num target prot opt source destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
num target prot opt source destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
num target prot opt source destination

does it make any sense …

edit this was all after turning off simple file sharing..

Ok I have been doing a bit of digging and I have got this far:

[root@localhost ~]# smbclient //192.168.1.76/Mary_Desktop -U windy
Enter windy’s password:
Domain=[MARY] OS=[Windows XP 3790 Service Pack 2] Server=[Windows XP 5.2]
smb: \>

And if I do a dir I can see the contents of Mary_Desktop

So I can see the share, but why can I not see it in the dolphin gui? And I still cannot see the samba share on the linux box in windows..

easiest way to use windows shares in linux is using samba fuse. It gives you a ‘network neighbourhood’ type of directory.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/fusesmb/

SMB for FUSE

SMB for FUSE is a Network Neighborhood (Samba shares) filesystem. It works like smbfs, but instead of accessing one share at a time, all computers and workgroups are accessible at once from a single filesystem mount, making network browsing just as easy as it is on Windows.

almost certainly available in yum/apt/whatever fedora has these days

try smbmount to mount the windows share to a local dir.

retro83- cannot find it on yum. I can download it and isntall, but that is a bit beyond me.

DM52 – that is also beyond me.. IS smbmount a command? I tried it and got

[root@localhost ~]# smbmount
bash: smbmount: command not found…

so I tried yum smbmount and also got nothing.

I’m looking at my windows xp64 disk and starting to get an “at least I know it works ” feeling..

toys19 – Member
retro83- cannot find it on yum. I can download it and isntall, but that is a bit beyond me.

I know nothing of the redhat way, but it looks like its packaged up ready for yum according to this page
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/pkgdb/acls/name/fuse-smb

got it good man.. let see if it works

ummm how do I use it?

oops, seems like smbmount no longer is used. Apologies, it has been replaced with

mount -t cifs //192.168.1.76/Mary_Desktop /dir on linux disk -o “user=windy,password=windys password,domain=mary”

(so close to Woody’s suggestion but with forward slashes instead of back slashes.)

I think I am too dumb to use linux:

[root@localhost ~]# mount -t cifs //192.168.1.76/Mary_Desktop /home/windy -o user=windy,password=xxxxxx,domain=mary
mount error(13): Permission denied
Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs)

What did I do wrong?