[Samba] new user introduction, and a few questions

[kendell clark]

hi all
My name is Kendell Clark, and I've just subscribed to this list. I
thought I'd write this email to introduce myself, and ask a couple of
questions about configuring samba. I'm a co developer of a linux
distribution for the visually impaired and disabled called Sonar GNU
linux, which you can learn more about at http://www.sonargnulinux.com.
I've been struggling to come up with a default samba configuration file
that will work for at least most windows and linux environments if not
all. The results have been mixed. I'm going to attach the samba config
file I install into the built sonar images, as well as my
/etc/nssswitch.conf file. I did have samba working for about two months,
between my desktop and my fiance's windows 7 computer but after a samba
update it stopped working. The config file was the same, but I started
getting errors. They're below. Whenever I try to access anything on
mellisa's computer now I get either "failed to retrieve share list from
server: no such file or directory" or "failed to retrieve share list
from server. Invalid argument. Please select another viewer and try
again. That last one stumps me because it makes no sense. I thought
there might have been something wrong with either samba or the gvfs or
filemanager samba plugin (I use the mate desktop) but reinstalling them
didn't help.
My next couple of questions have to do with the windows side of things.
I don't use it myself I'm  strictly a linux guy but I do set windows up
for my fiance a lot, and  I install it on my laptop periodically to test
samba on to make sure it works like I've set it up. One thing I've
noticed is that it seems somehow able to autoconfigure most of this
stuff. If I change the work group name on mellisa's computer, a windows
installation on my desktop or another computer finds it and connects
with no problems, prompting for a user name and password. Samba doesn't.
It simply won't connect. Is there an "automatic" or "figure it out"
option in the config file I can use? The only reason I'm asking is
because a lot of my users are not very experienced they're mostly
windows users and they expect things to more or less configure
themselves. If they have to configure stuff their first option is
generally to complain and ask why I can't simply do it for them. My next
question has to do with this "homegroup" stuff. I don't know much about
windows but this seems to be a different sharing system, not cifs, and
windows specific. Can samba take advantage of these or should I just
disable the home group stuff on all the windows computers I want to
connect with? My last question has to do with what samba shows when I do
manage to connect to my fiance's windows computer. A typical listing
looks like
$admin$
c$
f$
Users
The only one I can successfully connect to is the "users" folder. The
rest lock me out regardless of what user name and password I supply. If
I connect through a test windows installation windows doesn't display
anything but the "Users" item so I'm guessing those are system shares
that aren't supposed to be used. In order to access flash drives,
external hard drives, etc across the network I have to set them up
explicitly to be shared. I'm wondering if samba can access these? And if
so, how to set it up? Sorry to ask so many questions, I'm just trying to
come up with a default samba configuration that will work in most
situations without configuration needed, if that's possible. I'm a
fairly knowledgable linux user but i'm still learning how to develop a
linux distribution that's user friendly and does what most users want
out of the box. My files are attached, they're both very small.
Thanks for any help
Kendell Clark

-------------- next part --------------
 ##This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the
 ##smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed
 ##here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options (perhaps too
 ##many!) most of which are not shown in this example
 ##
 ##For a step to step guide on installing, configuring and using samba,
 # read the Samba-HOWTO-Collection. This may be obtained from:
 #  http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection.pdf
 #
 # Many working examples of smb.conf files can be found in the
 # Samba-Guide which is generated daily and can be downloaded from:
 #  http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/Samba-Guide.pdf
 #
 # Any line which starts with a ; (semi-colon) or a # (hash)
 # is a comment and is ignored. In this example we will use a #
 # for commentry and a ; for parts of the config file that you
 # may wish to enable
 #
 # NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command "testparm"
 # to check that you have not made any basic syntactic errors.
 #
 [global]
   workgroup = WORKGROUP
   security = user
   server string = Sonar Shares
   load printers = yes
   log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log
   max log size = 50
   usershare path = /var/lib/samba/usershares
   usershare max shares = 100
   usershare allow guests = yes
   usershare owner only = yes


  #Windows Internet Name Serving Support Section:

  #WINS Support - Tells the NMBD component of Samba to enable it's WINS Server
    wins support = yes

 # WINS Server - Tells the NMBD components of Samba to be a WINS Client
 #	Note: Samba can be either a WINS Server, or a WINS Client, but NOT both
 ;   wins server = w.x.y.z

 #WINS Proxy - Tells Samba to answer name resolution queries on
 # behalf of a non WINS capable client, for this to work there must be
 # at least one	WINS Server on the network. The default is NO.
    ;wins proxy = yes
name resolve order = wins dns bcast
   local master = yes

-------------- next part --------------
# Begin /etc/nsswitch.conf

passwd: files
group: files
shadow: files

publickey: files

hosts: files dns myhostname wins
networks: files dns myhostname wins

protocols: files
services: files
ethers: files
rpc: files

netgroup: files

# End /etc/nsswitch.conf