Getting Mac OS X 10.1 to talk to samba

[JW]

Hello,

I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mac OS X 10.1 because Apple claimed they were going to add SMB supports into it (which indeed they did).

The first problem is that the little network browser (specifically the "Connect to..." box ) does not actually do any SMB workgroup browsing (That's a very big mistake, imho, coming from *the* "Ease-of-Use" Company :-/ ), you have to know certain details (which doesn't particularly bother me, being used to Linux myself, but still I think this is a really bad way to do it).

Anyway, I am able to connect to Windows boxes with the following sort of URLs:

WIn2k Pro: 

        works: smb://graphics;jw/JW-C
        works: smb://jw/JW-C
        does not work: smb://192.168.0.21/JW-C
                That's a curious thing, that you _have_ to use a name - very odd

Win NT Server: 

        works: smb://cschomeserver/ServerE

Now I should state that we've had several Linux boxen integrated into our network for a very long time, all of our Windows servers/workstations have no trouble at all seeing the Linux SAMBA servers in the network browser - we don't have to call URLs explicitly. They even show up in Network Neighborhood with proper hosts names and everything.

But no matter what I do, I can't get the Mac to connect to any of the Linux servers. The fact that I can't use an IP is a great inhibition. I have double checked my smb.conf's and they all have to correct work group. 

All of the above leads me to belive that the problem with the SAMBA connections is a name resolution problem - we are not using any sort of local name server. 

I don't know a lot about networking, but does samba respond to arp/broadcast requests? If not maybe this is the problem, and is that a way to make it? I have lmannounce set to yes (or auto in some cases). 

I also have both the hostname and work group in all-caps. I no longer remember the reason for that, could that be the trouble? I tried it both ways in the "Connect to..." box

Has anyone yet found a solution that lets the Mac "see' the SMABA servers? 

Apple explicitly states "Symbiotic Relationship: Mac OS X offers native support for SMB/CIFS file servers for the first time on the Macintosh. This means you can use Windows and SAMBA UNIX servers right from the “Connect to” command in the Finder." So I know someone at Apple has - but what about us mere mortals? ;-)


Also, does anyone know if you can install samba on Mac OS X? I've no doubt it's theoretically possible, but I'm curious to know if anyone's actually done it, and how much trouble it was.

TIA

----------------------------------------------------
Jonathan Wilson
System Administrator

Cedar Creek Software     http://www.cedarcreeksoftware.com
Central Texas IT     http://www.centraltexasit.com