HOWTO: Setup Samba peer-to-peer with Windows

[gvsrinivasan]

thanks for the reply and clarification about the router, i am living in India and a router costs up to 85$ here ,so it will be good if it is possible in my current setup to achieve the internet connection sharing through crossover cables and samba is working through it only and through any software to do the internet connection sharing on Linux ,
again thanks for the reply

[Kulgan]

so you want the connection to go through the windows machine - so then you would need software for windows rather than linux. As far as I know, you would just connect to the windows machine as if it was a gateway, but you will most likely have set the windows machine up with all sorts of security settings first - windows is a little odd about that :/

I reccomend you start a new thread in the Networking section of the Forums - the mods probably like keeping things nice and tidy...

[gvsrinivasan]

ok .so i can use the windows machine as a gateway for connecting internet on Linux, it will be good if u cover some good software packages available for samba as a second part in the samba how-to guide ,u can also distribute it as a pdf file ,i will be happy if next version of Ubuntu
comes preloaded with samba installed instead of samba-common in it, thanks for patiently clarifying my various doubts on internet connection sharing

[Kulgan]

All I know is that it should be POSSIBLE - and that's pretty much it. I'm sure you will get help in your new post

[madscientist]

Hi all. I've been reading Samba howtos etc. until my eyes bleed . None of them seem to address what I want to do, or if they do I can't see it.

I have a (small office) network which is run by Windows people using Active Directory and all that stuff. I have my little Ubuntu system sitting on my desktop. So far I am able to mount shares and all that stuff, so I have no problems there.

What I can't seem to do is publish my system's hostname so that any other systems can resolve it!

Our Windows systems use static IP, not DHCP, and apparently there's some checkbox in the Windows network config that tells it to publish its hostname. I have a static IP for my Linux box too, but I don't know how to get my Linux box's hostname to be published. The Windows admin guys do NOT set up the hostname statically (apparently): the client pushes it somehow.

I don't want to be any sort of server: my system must be 100% client. I can't be a WINS server, or NMBD server, or Samba server, etc. (I only have a vague understanding of what those are anyway).

Is there some way I can configure Samba, or something else, to publish my hostname to a Windows environment (I assume using AD)? If someone could even point to which part of Samba might be used to do such a thing I would appreciate it.

Thanks for any tips or pointers!

[trietgiang]

Thank you so much for this guide. I had all working fine in the first attempt.

Just two questions please:

1) In the smb.conf file, there is a line:
username map = /etc/samba/smbusers
I checked in /etc/samba, there is not a "smbusers" directory. Is this normal?

2) I had this line in the last part of the conf file:
path = /home/samba/
Does it mean that all users connecting to this Linux will share this directory? Should individual directory is created per username? If no, how do I do that? Say I have 10 Windows users, I can create their accounts in Linux, how should I modify the smb.conf file to make individual's directories?

Thank you for your time, and keep up the great work.
Best regards,
Triet

[Kulgan]

madscientist:
I'm afraid I know nothing about Active Directory (though I may use it unknowingly ), and don't know much about static setups, either. Is is a workgroup or domain? What exactly are you trying to accomplish - if you don't want to have a samba server, then you don't want to host data, in which case there is no problem, is there?

[madscientist]

madscientist:
I'm afraid I know nothing about Active Directory (though I may use it unknowingly ), and don't know much about static setups, either. Is is a workgroup or domain? What exactly are you trying to accomplish - if you don't want to have a samba server, then you don't want to host data, in which case there is no problem, is there?

I'm not sure I know the difference between a workgroup and a domain: there is a workgroup name on the windows systems that I need to use. I can mount shares using smbfs without a workgroup name though.

I need for people to be able to resolve my hostname. For example, if they have putty on their system I want them to be able to "ssh myhost" where "myhost" is my linux box, and have it work. I also plan on hosting some services such as a web browser, etc. on my box.

In the Linux/UNIX world, which is where I'm from, that would involve either (a) pushing the hostname in the DHCP response, for dynamic IP, or (b) hard-coding the hostname/IP into the local DNS system. For Windows there appears to be some way of doing a combination: the IP address is statically configured, but the hostname is not specified on the server. Somehow the client pushes its hostname, then the hostname is available through normal DNS requests (like, I can use "host windowsbox" on my Linux system and have it resolve "windowsbox" to an IP address, where "windowsbox" is a Windows system using this method of "pushing" hostnames.

Does this make any sense? Anyone have any idea what I'm referring to? I'm afraid that while I have an embarrassing number of years experience with all things UNIX, I know virtually nothing about Windows, especially Windows servers and services.

[Kulgan]

I'm afraid that I can't - wish you luck finding help, though! Don't give up

[BabyUbuntu]

hi all....

i want to ask someting.. maybe its stupid question but its important for me

i have server mp3 ( ubuntu ) and 5 window clients + 1 laptop ubuntu
my problems are..
1. when i try to connect ubuntu from xp..have to login first. the question is.. how to connect ubuntu ( samba ) without login prompt?
2. if i playing my laptop(ubuntu) and i wanna playing mp3 from XP.. i've to copy to my local disk first.. my question is.. how to playing mp3 from xp without copy file first?

em sorry...my knowlagde bout linux very low.. i really need ur help