## An Introduction ## Daniel Jung mimiandi@bh.mbn.or.jp
This article is written in two parts. First, introduction to samba. The second one is on smb.conf parameters.
What is Samba?
Samba is a program that enables machines running Unix or Unix-like OS to talk to Microsoft networking protocol.
What can it do?
It allows Windows to access all or parts of Unix filesystem and printers.
Installation
You can do this two ways. You can install already compiled binaries or compile it yourself.
I choose the second since it gives me more flexibility. Uncompress it like so:
tar xzf samba-version.tar.gz
You should have number of directories and files now.
In the examples directory, you should find numerous examples of config files. Make sure you look through them.
Compiling Options
By using your favorite editor, open the Makefile in the untarred samba directory.
You should consider the following options in the Makefile:
1. Where to put the base of samba installation?
default:
BASEDIR = /usr/local/samba
* This defines where the components of Samba are stored
2. NT Domains or WorkGroups?
If your network consists of NT Domains then you can specify
like so:
WORKGROUP = MYNTDOMAINNAME
default:
WORKGROUP = MYGROUP
3. GuestAccount?
default:
.GUESTACCOUNT = nobody
* I suggest you create a user with minimal privileges just for
the samba account as security measure.
4. Authentication?
LanManager Encrypted Password, PAM (Pluggable auth),
Kerberos and so on...
Each of these Authentication methods are supported, please
read the docs to ensure which authentication suits you the
best.
5. Which OS?
Uncomment your OS options in Makefile.
6. More options?
Refer to local.h, there are some things in it you might find
useful; however, if you are not sure what you want, I suggest
you do not touch it.
Starting the Samba Daemon
There are two ways of starting Samba daemon.
1. Using inetd.conf
This is method I would prefer to use as it allows me to use
tcpwrapper. (I will assume you know what tcpwrapper does.)
Also, using inetd.conf to start samba may save you some
resources (if you know how inetd works, you'd know what I
mean).
netbios-ssn stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/sbin/smbd smbd
netbios-ns dgram udp wait root /usr/local/sbin/nmbd nmbd
* Note: The above is not yet configured for tcpwrapper.
2. Stand-alone daemon from startup-script.
Put following lines in rc.local:
echo -n "smbd and nmbd starting"
/locationofyoursambadirectory/smbd -D
/locationofyoursambadirectory/nmbd -D
echo "running"
* /locationofyoursambadirectory/ defaults
to /usr/local/samba/bin/
* -D option runs daemons in the background.
- Daniel
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