[Samba] recognizing netbios name
Robert T McQuaid
rtmq at fixcas.com
Fri Jul 10 02:24:24 MDT 2009
July 10, 2009
François Legal
devel at thom.fr.eu.org
samba at lists.samba.org
Subject: [Samba] recognizing netbios name
You responded:
> I think samba can't really work without smb.conf
> Most parameters have default values, but things like
> workgroup don't.
>
> Do you have any kind of firewall present on the samba
> machine or selinux policy in the way ?
>
> When wins support is set to yes in smb.conf, can you see
> the samba processes in ps-ef and the samba processes
> listening on the correct net work interface
> (netstat -lnp) ?
>
> François
Sir:
I also find it remarkable that Samba runs without smb.conf,
but it worked on two different tries.
I already eliminated firewalls without improvement.
As for selinux, I have not mastered it. I hope it is not
necessary to spend a month understanding it just so I can
connect a LAN.
When running Samba as well as possible, including
wins support = yes
ps -ef reports two processes containing smb in their name:
/usr/libexec/gvfsd-smb-browse
/usr/libexec/gvfsd-smb
netstat -lnp reports lots, too much to interpret. The only
entry with smb in its name is:
unix 2 [ ACC ] STREAM LISTENING 14588 2716/gvfsd-smb-brow
/tmp-orbit/rtmq-linc-a9c-0-709443e53c0c3
(Its all one line in the report).
Experience with this kind of problem suggests that an
elementary switch somewhere has not been turned on.
There seem to be no tools that assist in locating it.
Aside:
I decided I was making little progress, so I decided to
spend $80 buying Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It comes
with support through your configuration. A call to to
the US, after a half-hour listening to "your call is
important to us", got a referral to a Canadian
distributor. When he asked me how to spell L-I-N-U-X, I
new I was out of luck. Conclusion: There is no way for
an individual user, even one with decades of computer
experience, to set up a Linux LAN.
Robert T McQuaid
Mattawa Ontario Canada
--------------------------------------------------------
earlier communication:
July 8, 2009
Nick Pappin npappin at latahfcu.org
François Legal devel at thom.fr.eu.org
samba at lists.samba.org
Subject: [Samba] recognizing netbios name
F Legal suggested:
> If there is a router between your samba machine and your
> windows machines (which all 3 are on the same subnet if
> I understood correctly), then you probably need some
> sort of name resolution service (either WINS as provided
> by samba or DNS), as the broadcast packets used by the
> machines to announce themselves to the network probably
> won't traverse your router. Another option is building
> an lmhosts file and distributing it all over the
> machines. However, I think wins should work fine in
> your case, so just add wins support = yes in smb.conf
> then setup your windows machines to use the wins at the
> address of your samba machine.
W Nick Pappin asked:
> Is the linux system and the windows boxes on the same
subnet and network.
Gentlemen:
The hardware configuration is a router connected to a
modem and the outside internet, and also connected to
each of four computers by ethernet cables, so all
computers are on the same subnet.
Enabling WINS in smb.conf made no difference.
Establishing an lmhosts file on a windows computer
associating 192.168.0.4 with dell allowed ping dell to
produce the same result as ping 192.168.0.4, but
otherwise there was no improvement.
One more drastic test. After becoming skeptical of
smb.conf because no log files showed up where specified,
I made a backup and deleted it entirely --
rm /etc/samba/smb.conf . On rebooting, there was no
change, the Linux system could still read all windows
computers, though they could not see the Linux system.
So it seems Samba is paying no attention to smb.conf.
Is there a way to communicate directly with Samba to
find out what it is relying on?
Robert T McQuaid
--------------------------------------------------------
original request below:
July 6, 2009
Samba
samba at lists.samba.org
Subject: recognizing netbios name
I have a Fedora 10 Linux system connected through a
router to three windows computers (XP+XP+Vista). The
Linux computer seems unable to present a netbios name to
the rest of the network. The Linux computer can read
files from all of the Windows computers, but the windows
computers cannot see anything on the Linux system.
The following diagnoses have already been made:
I shut off the modem connecting to the internet, then
disabled all firewalls. No improvement.
I looked in the router for its table of attached
devices. It lists a device name for the windows
computers, a blank for the Linux computer. The device
name is what windows puts after \\ on a remote file
name, and what Samba calls netbios name.
The only communication from a windows computer that
responds is ping 192.168.0.4 . A ping with a netbios
name fails with the diagnostic:
A ping request could not find host Dell.
Please check the name and try again.
File /etc/samba/smb.conf (with most comments omitted)
looks like:
[global]
#--authconfig--start-line--
# Generated by authconfig on 2009/07/04 13:50:55
# DO NOT EDIT THIS SECTION (delimited by --start-line--/--end-line--)
# Any modification may be deleted or altered by authconfig in future
workgroup = GLORP
security = user
idmap uid = 16777216-33554431
idmap gid = 16777216-33554431
template shell = /bin/false
winbind use default domain = false
winbind offline logon = false
#--authconfig--end-line--
server string = Samba Server Version %v
netbios name = Dell
hosts allow = 127. 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.2 192.168.0.3
192.168.0.4 192.168.0.5
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 50
log level = 3
passdb backend = tdbsam
load printers = yes
cups options = raw
[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = no
writable = yes
[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
browseable = no
guest ok = no
writable = no
printable = yes
<end of smb.conf>
What does it take to get windows to recognize the Linux
system?
Robert T McQuaid
Mattawa Ontario Canada
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