[NCLUG] another samba question

[Lynn Danielson]

"S. Luke Jones" wrote:
> 
> I've got two windows machines:
>         kitchen - the machine in the kitchen
>         basement - the machine next to this one

> (The samba docs suggest that I want to use TCP/IP 

Yes, that's correct.  Samba implements NetBIOS over TCP/IP.
Now that there's a NetBEUI hack for Linux, it may be 
possible to use Samba with NetBEUI, but I'm not aware of 
anyone having done this.  

Presumably you already have Windows networking and file 
& print sharing enabled if you were successfully sharing 
files with NetBEUI.  Make sure that NetBIOS is binding to
TCP/IP in your Windows networking properties.  If you turn
off NetBEUI this should happen by default.  Otherwise there
should be a little check box in your TCP/IP properties.  If
it's checked but grayed out, that's fine.

If your work laptop (also Windows, yes?) can see your Linux
Samba shares ok, then your smb.conf file must be ok and I'll
assume your samba shares are browseable.

For static IP addressing, you'll want to make sure that your
Windows machine is in your /etc/hosts file.  Another file
you may want to make use of is the LMHOST file, which is like
a hosts file, but ties NetBIOS host names to IP addresses.
Samba by default will use a lmhost file, but it should fall 
back to broadcasting for name resolution if it doesn't find 
one.  On the Windows side, if I recall correctly, the LMHOST
file is in your C:\Windows directory.  As long as both Windows
and Linux are on the same subnet, broadcast resolution should
work.  But adding your Linux box to the Windows LMHOST file 
is worth trying.

Samba does not traverse subnets easily.  I've never used
class A networking.  If you believe the machines are on the
same subnet, I'll take your word for it.  But I'd make the
first three octets of the IP address match anyway.  You 
might also try setting the remote announce parameter in your
smb.conf file to the IP address of basement.  If you they're
on the same subnet this shouldn't be necessary, but its
worth a try.

A high "os level" (>32) will ensure that your Samba server 
wins, the master browser elections.  In conjunction with 
this you'll want to set local master, preferred master, and
master browser to true in smb.conf.  This should make your
Samba box force a browser election which it will win.  But
it can take fifteen minutes or more for this to be reflected
in Network Neighborhood.  On such a small network I wouldn't
expect it to take that long, but don't expect instantaneous
results.

Even if NetBIOS name browsing isn't working, if TCP/IP 
networking is working such that you can ping each machine 
from both sides by name, then you should still be able to 
connect the Windows machine to the samba server.  Simply
specify the Lanman man share directly at the run prompt,
i.e., select Run from the Start menu and enter 
\\sambaservername\sharename.  Hopefully this will bring up
all the files in that Samba share in a window which you can
then map to a drive letter.

Hope this helps,

Lynn