Introduction
Samba is a suite of Unix applications that speak the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. Many operating systems, including Windows and OS/2, use SMB to perform client/server networking. By supporting this protocol, Samba allows Unix servers to get in on the action, communicating with the same networking protocol as Microsoft Windows products. This book covers Version 2.0 of Samba, and many 2.2 options, but points out which options have been recently added in case you are still running an earlier version.
This pocket reference is aimed at system administrators who have already learned the basics of Samba and related information about Windows clients and domains. If you are new to Samba, we recommend you read Using Samba, by Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown, and Peter Kelly (O’Reilly). The material in this book comes from two appendixes of Using Samba.
A Samba-enabled Unix machine can masquerade as a server on your Microsoft network and offer the following services:
Contents
Section 1.2 lists the types of lines you can put in your Samba configuration file, usually named smb.conf.
Section 1.5 lists command-line options and related information for running the Samba daemons, and Section 1.7 lists various commands included in the Samba distribution that you can run from the Unix shell on the system hosting Samba.
The Samba daemons are:
- smbd
A program responsible for managing the shared resources between the Samba server machine and its clients. It provides file, print, and browser services to SMB clients across one or more networks. smbd handles all notifications between the Samba server and the network clients. In addition, it is responsible for user authentication, resource locking, and data sharing through the SMB protocol.
- nmbd
A simple nameserver that mimics the WINS and NetBIOS nameserver functionality, as you might expect to encounter with the LAN Manager package. This daemon listens for nameserver requests and provides the appropriate information when called upon. It also provides browse lists for the Network Neighborhood, and participates in browsing elections.
The Samba commands are:
- nmblookup
A program that provides NetBIOS over TCP/IP name lookups
- rpcclient
A Samba developer’s tool that exercises the remote procedure call (RPC) interfaces of an SMB server
- smbclient
An FTP-like Unix client that can be used to connect to Samba shares
- smbpasswd
A program that allows an administrator to change the encrypted passwords used by Samba
- smbsh
A shell that allows users to access files and directories on a remote Windows share as if the share were a regular Unix directory; available if Samba is compiled with the
--with-smbwrappersoption- smbstatus
A program for reporting the current network connections to the shares on a Samba server
- smbtar
A program for backing up data in shares, similar to the Unix tar command
- tcpdump
A version of the traditional Unix packet-tracing program that has been enhanced to understand the SMB protocol
- testparm
A simple program to validate the Samba configuration file
- testprns
A program that tests whether various printers are recognized by the smbd daemon
Font Conventions
The following font conventions are followed throughout this book:
- Italic
Used for filenames, file extensions, URLs, executable files, commands, Samba daemons, and emphasis
ConstantwidthUsed to indicate Samba configuration options, code that appears in the text, variables, and command-line information that should be typed verbatim on the screen
Constant width boldUsed for commands that are entered by the user, and new configuration options that we wish to bring to readers’ attention
Constant width italicUsed to indicate replaceable content in code and command-line information
[]Used to indicate optional elements in code