NN comment fields, Browse lists, case sensitivity, and Samba

[Paul L. Lussier]

>> From: "Mark Hazen" <mhazen at franklin.uga.edu>
>> Subject: Re: Network Neighborhood comment fields and Samba
>>
>>Have you tried commenting that string out in your smb.conf file, and letting
>>the string be set first in the individual configs? That'd be my first
>>suggestion.

I have tried that, and that just forced the default comment of:

	Samba Server 1.9.18pl8

>From: Bob Franklin <R.C.Franklin at reading.ac.uk>
>To: Samba list <samba at samba.anu.edu.au>

>I thought the comment was advertised by nmbd as part of the browse list, 
>so you wouldn't know what name was being used because no connection was made.


Exactly!  From reading John Blair's Samba book, and another comment I've
received from someone on the comp.protocols.smb newsgroup, I've gathered
that netbios aliases are really just aliases for the samba server itself,
and that anything listed in the main smb.conf file will affect each alias
unless it's specific smb.conf file over-rides and/or changes that.  But,
again in reference to John's book, using the statement 'include =
/path/to/smb.conf%L' only forces a reading of the conf file when the
server is referred to as that particular alias.  Therefore, nothing in the
smb.conf.%L will take affect until it is called, and nothing in it can affect
how it's seen in the NN explorer window.  Only those options and variables
set in the main smb.conf file will be in affect until one of the aliases is
chosen.

>On another note regarding this feature, I tried it yesterday but hit a 
>snag... the name seems to be case-sensitive, so it depends on whether the 
>user does '\\vimes', '\\Vimes' or '\\VIMES'.

Hmm, I wasn't aware of that.  One of the things I did notice, it that if
you use netbios aliases:

	netbios name = samba
	netbios alias = samba1 samba2 and samba3

In the browse list, all these systems show up as:

	Samba
	Samba1
	Samba2
	Samba3

Each is capitalized.  Using smbclient to connec works fine, regardless of
capitalization, so connecting to //Samba/<share> works just as well as
//sAmBa/<ShArE>.  This also worked fine from the the Win95 "Map Network Drive"
option.  So I don't think case really matters, unless you have some options
set improperly.  I have these in my main smb.conf:

        preserve case = yes
        short preserve case = yes
        case sensitive = no


>Since the UNIX filesystem is case-sensitive, doing 'include = smb.conf.%L'
>fails if the case is not just right.

It shouldn't.  It works fine for me.  Unless I'm doing something very wrong :)

>Is there a way round this, or do we need a '%l' (or something) which 
>converts the server name to lower-case?

Try setting some of the case options I mentioned above.


I hope this helps.
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
----
plussier at baynetworks.com
Broadband Technology Division - Bay Networks (now a Nortel Company, Ay! :)

	If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!