Newbie questions

[Paul L. Lussier]

In a message dated: Sat, 16 Jan 1999 08:32:01 +1100
Sean McGuire said:

>     Hi Folks,
>     
>     I am a relatively inexperienced Solaris system admin.  We have Samba 
>     version 1.9.15p8 running on our server currently.  I assume that it 
>     would be worthwhile for me to upgrade to 2.0.  However, I only 
>     generally know about how to keep Samba running, and very little about 
>     installation since someone else installed it.  Unfortunately, I can't 
>     seem to find a "Samba Installation for Dummies" type document on the 
>     web pages.  Any suggestions?

Well, that depends.  How good are you at compiling/installing Open Source
Software, and how confident are you in your ability to read unix man pages?

Samba is a great piece of software, but it's config file can be a little 
daunting for people who aren't really used to playing with Open Source
sw. 

That being said, if you need to be supporting Samba, I highly recommend
the book, "Samba: Integrating Unix and Windows" by John Blair from
SSC Publishing (Available at amazon.com).  O'Reilly & Assoc. is also
about to release a Samba book real soon now, which I'm sure will 
also be a must have!  In addition, the samba man pages are excellent!
In reality, John's book is really nothing more than the man pages that
samba ships with.  The big difference is that John has painstakingly combed
through the man pages, and organized them in a much more logical manner
and added a lot of valuable commentary to them.  The other major advantage
to John's book is that it *HAS AN INDEX* :)  which the man pages don't!
If you're really comfortable with reading man pages, then they contain
all the information you need.  I personally, keep John's book right next
to my desk at all times :)

Next, do you *need* to upgrade to 2.0?  If 1.9.15p8 is working and doing what
you need it to do, I recommend leaving well enough alone until you get a good
feel for how Samba works, how the config file is set up, and you get
yourself a copy of the book.

One thing I could suggest, if you have the time, is to get a copy of 2.0
and play with it either on a spare Sun, or grab a PC and install Linux on it,
then install Samba.  That will give you a non-critical system to bang on
and play with.

Of course, if you're spare time is like mine (non-existant :) this will
be tough :)
-- 

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

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