[Samba] Connecting Suse9.2 to Samba shares in a windows network

[Michael Kelly]

Hi and thank you for your reply, 
 
I am reasonably knowledgeably about Linux. I tried using fstab as kindof
a last resort, almost something you know is not going to work, but you
do it anyway out of frustration. 
 
I will explain a little further. 
 
The users who will be testing the Linux Workstations also have Windows
workstations, not dual boot, but a different machine. While on Windows,
these users My Documents directories are stored on the file server. To
the user, all data appearing to be stored in the local My Documents
directory is actually on the file server. When the user logs into their
Windows workstation they are connected to their My Documents directory
on the Samba file server by means of their username. I do not have
access to the smb.conf at this moment, but from what I remember this is
the share definition to achieve to above. 
 
[mydocs] 
      path = /mnt/file_server/mydocs/%u 
      public = no 
      writable = yes 
      browseable = no 
 
What I would like to have happen is when a user moves from their Windows
work station to the Linux workstation they will have access to their My
Documents directory the same as they have it on their Windows
workstation. 
 
I am currently not concerned about making any of the file system on the
Linux workstations available to the Windows systems. We are moving away
from the sharing of documents between individual workstations, it should
all be done via the file server. 
 
I apologize for not being clear enough in my original post. 
 
Thanks for any further suggestions 
Michael Kelly 
 
>>><joec at aracnet.com> 11/18 9:01 am >>> 
 
Michael Kelly <mkelly at victoria.komex.com> wrote : 
 
 
>Hi All, 
 
> 
 
 
First and foremost, post your smb.conf file. That is the best way for us
to help you. 
 
 
>Our office is running somes tests by introducing a couple of Linux 
 
>workstations into the mix to see how they fair. I am however having
some 
 
>issues connecting these workstations to the shares offered by our Samba

 
>3.02 server. 
 
>  
 
>I know that this is not really a samba issue, but I thought I might be 
 
>able to get some help here to rectify my problems. I apologize if this 
 
>is too far off topic for this list. 
 
 
Sorry.. but it kinda IS a samba issue. :) Trying to get two disparate
(in the case of Windows, desperate?) OS'es to talk is never entirely
easy. 
 
>  
 
>Here is the setup: 
 
>  
 
>It is a basic workgroup network, no domain, with no PDC or anything of 
 
>that sort. Authentication for the shares is done simply by having a 
 
>macthing username/password on a win2000Pro workstation. The majority of

 
>shares on the server have the SUID and SGID set to a certain user for 
 
>simplicity and to resolve the Microsoft Office file locking issues. 
 
>However, each user's My Documents directory is a server share that is 
 
>accessed automatically by way of the username used on the workstation.
I 
 
>have left out a few details, but they are unimportant. 
 
 
Documents is a good place to share data with... 
 
>  
 
>I do not want the users to have to mount any drives themselves on the 
 
>Linux workstations so I would like them to be mounted automatically
when 
 
>the user logs in, not at boot time, but login time as these Linux 
 
>workstations will be multiuser so will need to mount different My 
 
>Documents directories. 
 
>  
 
Tha nature of Samba and Linux is that if your samba server is running,
once the user logs in, then they will have access to the samba shares
listed in your smb.conf file. This is the file in which you determine
what shares to make available to your Windows users. 
 
 
>I have put the share definitions into fstab, but that will not do the
My 
 
>Documents correctly. I have also tried using autofs which works well
for 
 
>the regular shares, but again does not work for My Documents. I have 
 
>found info on doing something similar with an NFS filesystem but
nothing 
 
>pertaining to smbfs and what I am trying to do with the My Documents 
 
>share 
 
 
Ummmmm how familiar are you with linux/unix? fstab is meant for mounting
files that are to be distributed among linux workstations. You can use
this one of two ways: 
 
1 - You have a large pool of file servers that you want to distribute to
other linux workstations 
 
2 - You have a collection of Windows PCs that contains specific data
(i.e. documents, CAD drawings or database info) that you want to mount
via smbfs (samba file share). 
 
 
In this case, with only two linux machines, you do not have to be
concerned about mounting the windows shares to the linux machine. You do
have to make entries in the smb.conf file in order to make the linux
shares visible to the windows users. 
 
 
>  
 
>I am currently mounting them via a script that is called from .bashrc. 
 
>This works, but it just does not seem very elegant and I know that it 
 
>can be done better in Linux, I am just not sure how. 
 
>  
 
>I would like these tests to pass with flying colors to show the higher 
 
>ups that Linux will work as a workstation, but having to write a custom

 
>script for each user to be able to mount the Samba shares will not help

 
>my case. 
 
>  
 
You can write a generic script that can interpret who the user is and
execute accordingly. Again, how much experience do you have as a
linux/unix user? From your description here, I am not sure I fully
understnad exactly your setup. I think I do, but it is not completely
clear. 
 
 
Let me layout to you what I see you wanting to do: 
 
1 - You wish to share 'My Documents' from your linux machine(s) 
 
2 - 'My Documents' will be located on your linux machines and will be
accessible by all WIndows users. 
 
 
Please confirm. That way, we can set about helping you better. :) 
 
 
Joe