[Samba] FireWall Effects on Samba (Newbie)

[Alex Le Dain]

Dear List,

I have been wrestling with getting Samba 2.2.5 on Redhat 7.1 working on a Windows NT network containing W2K, W98 and Mac machines. I can see the Samba server (gargoyle) from the Win machines fine, but cannot browse any shares (Network unreachable error message).  This seems a relatively common problem, but seems harder to resovle in my case :-)

I have walked through the toubleshooting chapter and fail at a certain point. If I use "net view" from the Win machines I see the server, but "net view \\gargoyle" fails, but should have listed the available shares. Interestingly from the linux side I can browse outwards and see shares on the Win machines and the NT server fine. I can see the samba shares fine from the linux side but "nmblookup -B 192.168.1.253 gargoyle" command returns a "name query failed" result (.253 is the NT server). Presumably then gargoyle is not announcing itself correctly?

BTW I have added the linux server to the NT's LMHOSTS file and to the Win machines LMHOSTS file and this helps with name resolution but not the share problem. I have added the users to the linux system and to the samba password file and just aboiut every other thing suggested in the troubleshooting chapter.

OR, is it to do with firewall configuration rejecting the packets at the lowest level? Given I am a Linux newbie, can someone provide a walkthrough of where I go to broaden my firewall (if this really is the problem)?

I am at a loss as to where to go (smb.conf is shown below). Unless I crack this and a netatalk installation I will be stuck with configuring a Mac server! Yuk! BTW the netatalk stuff doesn't work either, hence the firewall suspicion.

cheers, Alex

[global]
   smb passwd file = /etc/samba/smbpasswd
   remote announce = 192.168.1.253
   dns proxy = no 
   security = user
   encrypt passwords = yes
   workgroup = ICON
   server string = Samba Server %v
   socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192
   netbios name = GARGOYLE
   log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
   load printers = yes
   wins support = no
   printcap name = /etc/printcap
   max log size = 50
   guest account = pcguest

[homes]
   comment = Home Directories
   browseable = no
   writable = yes

[printers]
   comment = All Printers
   path = /var/spool/samba
   browseable = no
   guest ok = yes
   writable = no
   printable = yes

[tmp]
   comment = Temporary file space
   path = /tmp
   read only = no
   public = yes

[public]
   path = /iconshare
   public = yes
   only guest = yes
   writable = yes
   printable = no

-- 
Alexander C. Le Dain, PhD
Manager of Programming
ICON Technologies Pty Ltd
www.icon-tech.com.au