[Samba] Starting with Samba - first impressions

[Todd O'Bryan]

So the SWAT thing is not just me. Several people have written with this  
same problem over the past few weeks and if anyone has solved it they  
haven't sent the solution to the list.

I wish someone in the know who has an hour to kill (OK, I realize I've  
just described the empty set.) would install RH9 and go from a clean  
install to getting SWAT to work and document what they did. Clearly,  
one cannot follow the How-To's anywhere and have this work. And most of  
us who are having the problem are clueless enough that we don't know  
what to do next if the directions get followed and the results don't  
happen as expected.

Todd

On Nov 21, 2003, at 1:00 AM, Fran Fabrizio wrote:

>
> I promised John yesterday that I would document my experiences as I  
> tried to convert this ugly two-headed network I've inherited (see  
> thread titled "Having Samba integrate/replace existing mixed  
> Unix/Windows network" from yesterday) into an easy-to-manage  
> Samba-based network.  I took the first baby steps and I thought that  
> it would be interesting/useful to post semi-regularly here so that  
> those of you who are also looking to get started with Samba can see  
> what someone else is going through, and those of you who are so close  
> to the project that you might take some things for granted can see  
> some of the issues that one user is dealing with. :-)  If this isn't  
> useful for anyone, I'll stop sending them. Anyhow, here's day one....
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> ----
> Day 1 - Creating a testbed, installing Samba, and a quick  
> proof-of-concept
>
> I've decided that for my testbed I would use a laptop running linux as  
> my Samba server, and I would use VMWare to put an instance of Win XP  
> Pro as my client.  This way, I have a self-contained Samba network in  
> a laptop that can travel with me and does not rely on any network  
> connectivity to develop the Samba environment.  I thought this would  
> be an easy part but one of the Redhat 9 ISOs that I downloaded from  
> linuxiso had a corrupted package (disk 2, the xpdf package - two  
> separate downloads, two separate burns on two different computers, and  
> both had the same flaw), followed by one XP Pro VMWare install hang in  
> the middle.  As a result, it was nearly 5pm before I had the OSes  
> installed correctly and was ready to download Samba.
>
> Hopped onto samba.org and downloaded the 3.0.0 source.  Before  
> unpacking, I removed all Redhat RPMs for samba.  I then proceeded to  
> follow the instructions in the Using Samba book to do my config and  
> install.  Knowing that down the road I wanted to play with all sorts  
> of authentication options, I chose to configure Samba with PAM, LDAP,  
> NIS+ as well as smbwrapper and smbmount and automount and syslog.   
> Configuration and build went fine, except it took forever (maybe 30  
> minutes) on the laptop so I hope I don't have to do this too often.   
> Install went fine.
>
> I followed the book and created a small smb.conf that simply creates a  
> share called "test" (/usr/local/samba/tmp).  I dropped a test file in  
> there.  I then tried to see how the same thing would look from  
> SWAT....
>
> Bump #1.  I followed the book.  I checked /etc/services for the swat  
> entry (it was there already).  I then added a swat file to  
> /etc/xinetd.d/ directory as per the book.  /bin/kill -HUP -a xinetd.   
> Logs show that it restarted ok.  Open browser, go to  
> http://localhost:901/, it spins for a while, then connection refused.   
> Try again, connection refused.  Double-check all files, notice that  
> the path the book had me enter (/usr/local/samba/bin/swat) is wrong -  
> it's /usr/local/samba/sbin/swat.  Fix this, try again, connection  
> refused.  Send more HUP signals to xinetd, nothing seems to work.   
> netstat doesn't indicate anything listening on port 901.  I never did  
> get Swat running but I am a text config kind of guy anyhow and I was  
> anxious to get on, so I put it aside for another day after about 15  
> minutes and a coupel of fruitless google searches.
>
> I fired up the daemons and they started fine.  I did an smbclient -U%  
> -L localhost a few times, the test share was listed, everything looked  
> just like the book said it would except (Bump #2) where it says  
> "Master" next to "Workgroup" it was always blank.  This was  
> disconcerting but I decided to press on.  (About 10 minutes later I  
> tried it again, and it was now listed as the laptop's name.  I guess  
> it just takes a while to make itself known)
>
> The book suggested that I create a user on the Windows client  
> specifically for testing, so I created a user/pass of samba/samba.  I  
> then remembered to go back to the Samba server and add this with  
> smbpasswd (I guess this is what is referred to as the matching  
> encrypted passwords issue).  I hit Bump #3 here.  I would try  
> smbpasswd -a samba, enter in the password, and it would tell me that  
> it failed to initialise a SAM_ACCOUNT.  After about 5 tries of this, I  
> googled again, and learned that the user must already exist as a Unix  
> account.  So I added a local Unix user by that name, tried smbpasswd  
> again, and all was well.  I wish the book made this a little clearer.
>
> Once I got over that hurdle, I logged into XP as the samba user,  
> popped open My Network Places....and it was blank.  However, after  
> about 30 seconds, I saw the test folder pop up.  This may simply be  
> due to the less-than-stellar performance of XP inside VMWare on a  
> laptop, or it might be another one of those "takes some time to  
> announce itself" deals.  The display of Workgroup Computers worked  
> flawlessly.
>
> The share worked fine, I can copy files to and fro, all is well.  So,  
> I'm calling it a night.  I think that was a good first step, and not  
> very painful at all, so far so good.  If anyone has any pointers on  
> the SWAT problem I'd like to at least get it working and take a peek  
> at it.  I seem to have everything else worked out up to this point.   
> Looking forward to doing some more complicated things tomorrow.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hope someone finds this useful,
> Fran
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