10.4: Lan Networking gone - How do I start from scratch?

[bowsprit]

Pretty much a noob here, but I've tried google "fixes" for two weeks and nothing works, and I'm not sure what I've messed up in the process, so I really want advice on how to start from scratch (networking only -- I don't want to have to reinstall the whole OS).

At some point after upgrading to 10.4, and buying a new ASUS RT-N12 router, my Linux box has effectively disappeared from my home network. I connect through the router to the internet fine, but none of my old Samba shares, or even my Linux box, show up on my windows machines "my network places", and double clicking "Windows Network" in Nautilus "network:///" gives an error: Unable to mount location/ Failed to retrieve share list from server.

Using ethernet (not wireless) for this box.

I suspect there may be a problem with my mounting system as well since this happened around the same time I lost a hard drive, and started plugging in a Kindle which seems to throw things out of whack (I have 12 directories in my /media directory named "Kindle"). But I don't know how the two could be related.

I can ping the WinXP machines on my network both by name and IP. I can ping my linux box's ip from the windows machine, but not by name ("u64").

So before I paste all sorts of output from all sorts of diagnostics -- which I'm more than happy to do -- what's the best way to get to square one, where my box shows up on the network and I can see the other Win-XP boxes?

Any help much appreciated.

[sikander3786]

Hi.

First of all, are you able to ping from one box to another?

[bowsprit]

Kind of:

I can ping the WinXP machines on my network both by name and IP. I can ping my linux box's ip from the windows machine, but not by name ("u64").

[sikander3786]

Is Samba installed and configured properly? How did you share the folders? Through Samba config file or nautilus-share? Also all the systems are in the same workgroup I believe.

[bowsprit]

--- Is Samba installed
yes

--- and configured properly?
No. I've messed with the configuration endlessly for the last two weeks and everything is messed up and ad-hoc. I've uninstalled and reinstalled smbd, nmbd, winbind... I don't know what else. I have no confidence that anything is right. I'd love a list of files to blow away and a list of "apt-get install" commands to run to get back to square one.

-- How did you share the folders? Through Samba config file or nautilus-share?
Through both... I think I had created some shares via Nautilus, and maybe edited the config file. But everything worked for several years until one day it didn't.

-- Also all the systems are in the same workgroup I believe.
Yes called "WORKGROUP"

[sikander3786]

If your Samba config file is messed up, I think you should restore the default one if available. If not, purge samba and reinstall.



sudo apt-get remove --purge samba && sudo apt-get autoremove


and



sudo apt-get install samba


I have always worked with the default config file except changing a few options e.g, Security = User instead of Security = Share and add usershare owner only = false to the end of Global Menu.

I haven't got a copy of my samba config file at this time otherwise I would've posted you one. Try reconfiguring it and see if it helps.

And I have no experience with Winbind, so for that I think someone else will have to jump in.

[bowsprit]

Okay, did that, and purged & reinstalled winbind as well.

the /etc/samba directory did not change so all the config files are the same.

I don't have a "default" config file anymore. Can I find the simplest possible one somewhere to start with?

[sikander3786]

A copy of default smb.conf is present in /usr/share/samba/smb.conf. Copy it to /etc/samba.