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Review:Samba: Integrated UNIX and Windows
Well, after a long wait and fanfare, Kurt has sent a review of John Blair's Samba effort Samba: Integrating UNIX and Windows. If you need to make those two play well together, click below for more information.
Samba: Integrated UNIX and Windows
author
John D. Blair
pages
publisher
Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
rating
7
reviewer
Kurt DeMaagd
ISBN
summary
This book provides in depth detail about installing and configuring Samba.
The Scenario
John Blair, a member of the Samba development team, tackles the issue of
integrating Windows and UNIX machines using Samba. While Samba is best known for allowing a UNIX host to act as
a file server for Windows machines, it also includes services for print serving, authentication, name resolution,
and other services needed for Windows networks. Blair begins with a discussion of NetBIOS and SMB, the core protocols
of Windows networking, but spends a majority of the book going into excrutiating detail about how to install and
configure Samba. In addition to general configuration settings, it discusses the necessary configuration settings
for approximately 35 different operating systems, including Linux, OS/2, Solaris, many more obscure operating systems.
As the preface notes, this is a book primarily for UNIX systems administrators. Since it devotes a large amount of space to configuration parameters and explanation, it is definitely not a book to sit down and read on a lazy Sunday afternoon. If you are an administrator attempting to set up Samba, this is the book for you. If you are looking for a more casual reading experience, you will be quickly bogged down in the configuration details.
What's Bad? This is an extremely dry book that is about as fascinating to read as a man page. Many portions of the book are little more than a paper versions of existing documentation. For everyone who doesn't like to pay for information that is already freely distributed, all of the contents are accessable in the Samba man pages or online at Samba's web site.
What's Good? The chapter detailing the SMB and NetBIOS protocols is an interesting and valuable addition to the book. In a text that devotes a majority of its space to installation and configuration, it provides an interesting insight into the underlying workings of the server. For those who are installing Samba, it provides step-by-step installation and configuration information for a variety of operating systems.
So What's In It For Me? If you need to configure a Samba server, this book is a valuable resource. It provides in depth configuration details and examples for a variety of scenarios.
Buy this book at Amazon.
Table of Contents- Introduction
- Windows Networking Protocols
- Downloading and Building Samba
- Components of the Samba Suite
- Global Configuration Options
- Service Configuration Options
- Browser Configuration Options
- Access Control Configuration Examples
- Service Configuration Examples
- Other Tricks and Techniques
- Diagnosing Problems
- The Linux SMB Filesystem
I would like to use my linux box to connect to, and copy from a windows NT file share. I want to use Linux as the CLIENT, not the server. And I have not been able to find good documentation on that. I want to be able to do this:
1) Stick a disk with all the samba stuff on it into my linux box
2) mount the disk
3) run the samba client and grab some files from the NT server
4) unmount and remove the floppy.
While I am doing this, I don't want people to be able to access anything on the linux box. ie: I don't want to be running any kind of samba SERVER at all.
Anyone got an answer?
Can't you just use the smbclient program? I run it on a machine that doesn't run the samba daemon and it works just fine.
(This program is a part of the samba distribution)
Actually, it seems the average book review is about a 7.5/10. Look for the book on gtk for a really low score (I'd really like an O'Reilly book on gtk, in case anyone's listening!). Of course, that average is somewhat bumped up by the 11/10 score for Godel, Escher, Bach
Yep, set ENCRYPTION=yes, then the magic "SMBPASSWD -a " command. Seems not be well highlighted in the docs, and certainly not in the book!
I believe this person is referring to the "add user script" option in the smb.conf configuration file. It simply specifies a script to be run as root as root when a user needs to be added to the Unix server. Check it out in the smb.conf man page for more info.
All windows network browsing currently requires netbios, whether it is using netbeui, ipx or tcp/ip underneath it.
:)
Netbeui is a transport layer protocol, while netbios is a session (?) layer protocol.
Win2000 won't need netbios except for backwards compatibility with older computers. MS is moving to a tcp/ip and dynamic dns based architecture.
Corrections welcome
No, you are not. I just love manpages:
~ *man 8 tunefs
[...]
BUGS
It's a shame that some new software doesn't come with manpages anymore. Instead they have "funky" html-pages or it's own strange "help system" :-(
This _can_ be a horrific thing to diagnose,especially if you're new to this sort of thing. The problem is that everything after Win95A sends encrypted passwords by default, and Samba receives plaintext by default. You can do a registry hack to make Windows send cleartext (BAD!), which is probably what the book suggests.
The better way is to create a smbpasswd file, and put the encrypt passwords = yes line into smb.conf--this means that everyone will have to enter their password, though. You can use "update encrypted = yes" and "encrypt passwords = no" to make this transparent, but that means you have to make Windows send cleartext for a while, until everyone has used Samba at least once. Then, you change Windows and Samba back to using encryption.
This is especially confusing if you have a Win95A machine next to a Win95B one, and one gets rejected and the other doesn't
see http://www.sco.com/vision/products/visionfs/vision fsds.html
My printers are in the basement connected to a machine which has to be windows (my grandfather wants to play his dumn card games and will kill me if I try to make him use linux).
I have tried many o times to get this to work. (though I actually got it to print a text file ONLY ONCE with smbclient)..
Is there a way to map it to lp/r???? (That's the command I use on the unix network at my university)
Lookup bookpool, probably cheaper, worth comparing.
Funny how all those that pay fat commisions to referring sites are =-1 cent within each other. Sorry, I buy by price.
Once the masses find out search engines can be dishonest by blanking out/derating competitors, all this crap about established names will evaporate fast.
Meantine, I am waiting for the linux server scene to improve, as newbies should not have to suffer I740 driver woes. m$ realizes NT won't take off is the massses suffer driver bull-shittery. Am sure red hat will fix this.
You really should use mr Bailys way of writing. You could probably simplify it to
smbmount \\\\SERVER\\SHARE -U username -c 'mount mountpoint' though.
Check your version of mount. I don't know about the version 6 but the latest mount is version 2.9r in util-linux at ftp.win.tue.nl
I hope that MS don't support Netbios in NT Server v5. I'd love to see their response to half a million win 3.1 users whose networks don't work anyomore.
Fortunately, SSC will be coming out with a second edition of the Samba book before September :)
By and large, the book, as discussed is good on detail and authoritative. But there's one big weakness. It fails to go into any depth on encrypted Windows password authentication. Newcomers can easily bash their brains out for hours wondering why they can't get login permission. Blair's solution is to go for plain-text authentication - very weak. It's covered in the more recent HOWTO's, but not in this book.
methinks you have it backwards. If I remember correctly (brain clanking as it attempts to access data that is almost 10 years old) NetBIOS is just a protocol for basic peer-to-peer network communication between named computers on a network.
Windows uses NetBIOS to send Server Message Blocks (SMBs). Seems to me that Win95/98/NT now does SMB via TCP, and NetBIOS isn't all that useful anymore (except for backward compatibility with 3.11, etc).
Actually, the more I think about it, I seem to remember that NetBIOS was more or less obsoleted by NetBEUI a while back (although I may be confusing things on this point).
Unfortunately this got a little bit delayed... Using samba is scheduled to arrive only by September... 8-(
By and large, the book, as discussed is good on detail and authoritative. But there's one big weakness. I fails to go into any depth on encrypted Windows password authentication. Newcomers can easily bash their brains out for hours wondering why they can't get login permission. Blair's solution is to go for plain-text authentication - very weak. It's covered in the more recent HOWTO's, but not in this book.
Bear in mind that the book is from the summer of 1998 and covers Samba 1.9. Notable changes in 2.0 include the use of of autoconf, better NT domain functionality and the new SWAT Web configuration tool. (And I am unsure of this, but the libdes compilation section might be obsolete now too).
As others have mentioned, the sections on Windows networking alone make the book worthwhile. In addition, I found the section on setting up Samba to use encrypted passwords highly useful. There is also a large section on all of the Samba configuration options.
While much of the book's information is located in the Samba source tree, the information is spread out among dozens of files. Consider the price of this book a small investment to avoid hefty NT client fees.
when Win2000 comes out, win 95,98 and NT won't just go away. For that reason, I would imagine that windows will have to include SMB for 2000 and beyond.
------------------
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Let's assume your rumor is true...
1) Sun's implementation would be a copy of a point in time (e.g. when the NT-privy company became non-privy). Samba and Sun both have to reverse engineer from that point on (and trust ME, MS would change everything).
2) Samba will still be as cheap or cheaper (unless Sun pays me money to use it).
3) As you note, Sun's version probably won't be open source. So why would I want to use it? "Commercial support"? I think we've already defeated that argument soundly.
4) There are ALREADY commercial products that do what Samba does.
5) Leaving the particular example of Samba aside now, let's try to think of other well-known, mature OS products being obsoleted (obsoletified?) by commercial (proprietary) products. Apache vs IIS? Linux vs NT?
So remind me again why Samba will be obsolete?
--
"Please remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say." - Rob Malda
Posted by Jeremy Allison - Samba Team:
:-).
:-). So it's actually a dead product (old, crufty SVR3 code, with a user level thread library) ported to Solaris.
:-) :-).
> SUN Microsystems bought out a company that was
> privy to NT's source code (trust me, MS doesn't
> want anyone to know about this). In taking
> classes for SUN, I ran across an instructor who
> told the class to learn SAMBA, but not to dwell
> on it because SUN was working on a TRUE SMB
> client for UNIX.
Oh, you mean Project *Cascade* (now released as Sun's PC/Netlink services. I'm afraid your 'secret knowledge' is a bit out of date (oh, *do* pay attention, 007...
It's a port of AT&T's Advanced Services for UNIX. Yes, that old chestnut (the one that AT&T sued MS over lack of access to source code, and settled for a bunch of cash and *no* source code
Oh yes. And it's *slooow****. Note that in the latest PC Week benchmark that Sun was involved in they chose to use Samba, rather than any of the products they actually *sell*. Hmmmmm. Doesn't inspire confidence does it......
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
I meant "hold my breath for it to be open" Sorry all
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
I'd assume that it will be for Solaris 2.x SPARC first, then ported to x86 and possibly open sourced, although I wouldn't open my breath. For those of us in the situation where we need to talk to both worlds, this is a godsend.
SAMBA's done a great job and is one of the best tools ever created for interoperablility, but with SUN's new tool, at least Solaris users will have a commercially supported product to do what we need to do.
As always, redirect all flames to /dev/null.
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
You are exactly correct. I write reviews for Slashdot as well, and if I generally give good reviews, it is because I read good books.
:-)
For me to invest my own time a) reading a poor book to completion, and b) writing a review of that poor book, I would have to be extremely motivated.
I put a lot of effort and thought into my reviews. They are predominantly about computer programming books, because that is what I read and that is what I do. I like to think that others appreciate that effort and thought.
Oh, by the way, I am about to write a bad review, hopefully finish it tonight. It does happen.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Hell, I used to go to school with the author -- he and I got our first UNIX-related jobs running a NeXTStep cluster. Got my autographed copy of his book right here in my lap. He's a great guy, it's a great book, and it's totally worth it.
--adr
I have lots of samba documentation in /usr/local/doc/ There are examples and everything.
hope this helps.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
Try reading the vanilla Motif 1.2 man pages. Pages and pages of tables describing resources: XmCreateManagedWidget (1m) XM_FOO_PROPERTY
Er, um, ping.
You can use smbclient, which works similarly to a command-line FTP client. Under Linux you can use smbfs to mount SMB shares onto your file-system.
SMB and Netbios are not going anywhere. Windows 2000 adds "enhancements" to the current WINS (based on NBNR or NetBiosNameService) name resolution, which is based on SMB and Netbios, coupled with names derived from DHCP.
a l/networking/wins.asp
The fun part for the Samba crew is to incorperate the functions added by ADS....
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/server/Technic
Cheers,
Krakken
according to my copy of the oreilly catalogue (data march 1999), a new book, "using samba" by kelly, donham, & collier-brown, will be released in june 1999. the pre-review also mentions suff about "advanced topics in security and complex environments" (passwords encryption perhaps?). comes with a CD. the book also covers the v2.0 gui.
My only disappointment with this book was the author's decision to not discuss the (beta) PDC functionality in Samba. I can understand his reluctance to document features that aren't entirely supported in the current release,, but I would have appreciated at least a theoretical discussion of the issues involved.
I believe that the next non-bug-fix version is going to support using Samba as a PDC without requiring a recompile. That's cool.
On a more general, related note: even though online docs are updated more regularly, and are free (qua beer), they are still inferior to ink on paper in a well-bound book in so many ways that I see no real replacement for the latter. The human eye was not really designed to absorb back-lit information - the real world uses reflected light. The resolution of the printed page is still much higher. The portability and flexibility of a book is still unmatched, and the multiple strategies for interaction - browsing/skimming, tables of contents, indices, scanning for pictures, distinction by text styles, etc. - are only poorly aped by any digital medium. In the time it takes for me to load even a small local search utility and then render a page or two, I can flip through a text, look up a person's name in the index, check the references on 3 pages, and then scan the bibliography.
The main drawback of the book as interface is its nondynamic content - new information means a new book. However, considering how old a lot of the documentation out there is (when was the last time the Linux-Hardware-FAQ was updated?), in practice that's not a problem limited to the paper media.
Sorry but your post read like this book is just what MindCraft DIDN'T want to find.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I'm so glad a less than rave review of a book finally appeared here on slashdot. Maybe it will finally shut up those conspiracy nuts who claim that all book reviews on slashdot are good only to make money off the link to Amazon.
I think the reason most reviews here are positive is because most people won't invest the time to write a review of a book they didn't like.
I have had my unfair share of problems with the smbfs and smbmount. The smbmount command that don_bailey posted, did not work for me. The only type of command that at least comes as far as asking for a password, but complain about "invalid argument", is as follows:
//server_name/share_name /mount_point -U user_name -I ip_addr
smbmount
I also get an error message in the message log that states as follows:
May 26 14:14:50 hrotti kernel: SMBFS: need mount version 6
I am currently running a 2.2.3 kernel, with smbfs as kernel driver, samba-1.9.18p10-3, smbmount version is 2.0.1
While suffering from this problem I have had to resort to the smbclient. Which for me, is not at all a satisfying solution, since I copy files to and from the share allmost constantly during a day.
Does anybody have any comments on what might be wrong with the command ?
Confusing the issue is the fact that IBM refers to "NetBIOS" as both the API and the wire protocol (NetBEUI). Microsoft will sometimes use the term "NBT" for NetBIOS-over-TCP/IP.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I am ashamed to say that I have never learned anything from the man pages, man is just gross, and a waste of time for me. If --help isnt enough I either give up or find another way. I'm sure the LDP is a great effort and useful for some, for people who just want to run Linux, however, its a horrible experience. There has to be a better way. (ps the only samba documentation is man pages, it took me 3 solid days to even get a share up)
This is an extremely dry book that is about as fascinating to read as a man page
Am I the only one, even amongst fellow nerds, who finds man pages interesting, contrary to what is implied in the review ?
Ok there are some poor ones, but most Linux man pages are quite good.
I totally wholehartedly with out a doubt agree from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head!
"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" - DNA
Hey I got a salary boost for writing linux geek on my resume, way more than I got for the mcse!
= )
"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" - DNA
Unlike the MSCE courses, this one sounds like it's worth what you pay for it! ;->
Samba is (presumably) so named because it permits Linux to communicate using SMB (Server Message Blocks). SMB (as I understand it) is the upper-level protocol used by NetBIOS. NetBIOS is supposed to go away in Windows 2000 (aka NT 5). From that point forward, there will be no need for SMB and thus Samba.
The above is intended more as a question than a statement; is my analysis or understanding of the facts incorrect?
Try smbmount. I tried using smbclient but it was somewhat flakey on my system (RedHat 5.2). smbmount worked flawlessly.
I bought this book at a recent computer show. I found it very interesting, and quite easy to read. In fact, I read straight through it in two days.
It provides a great deal of useful background information about CIFS/SMB/MS networking, in a clear sensible fashion. I learned a great deal about browsing, elections, primary and backup domain servers, etc. Because of this, I would even recommend the book to pure NT admins (poor suckers).
For Samba admins, the book is invaluable. It contains a clear concise, indexed, explaination of every configuration parameter. Several parameters that I didn't understand in Samba's included docs made sense after reading this. The book also has a large number of useful examples.
All of the information in the book could probably be obtained free from the net. However, it would
be in pieces from various sources. This book collects and organizes it.
I highly recommended this book.
I believe what you're looking for is smbclient or smbmount.
note: for smbmount, you'll have to have smbfs support in your kernel.
"We are not tolerant people. We prefer drastically effective solutions"
It depends where do you want to run this server on: Given your case (you use Linux), then you don't need no special software. The Linux kernel itself has a SMB client for filesystems (you use it with the command smbmount, it's usually shipped as a compiled module so you won't even have to recompile).
If you happened to use an old version of Linux with no SMB support, or if you happened to run another OS (I mean, a Unix, Mac or Amiga OS), Samba ships with smbclient, which you can use more or less as an FTP equivalent for all SMB functions - it runs pretty smoothly, although smbmount is much better.
This book has been out of print for
the last 3 months ! I checked Amazon
again today and it has just become
available. How convenient
Probably comparing man pages to reading definitions out of the dictionary. way off.
Man pages often include things you need to watch out for. Some even cover large classes of software.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Well, John's book only deals with Samba 1.9.18
:-)
while 2.0.x has been out for a while. The latest
is 2.0.4b.
Two other members of the Samba team, Jerry Carter
and Richard Sharpe, have written another Samba
book: SAMS Teach Yourself Samba in 24 Hours.
Don't worry about the Title. We tried to make
the book useful for the novice as well as the
more experienced user of Samba.
Check it out on Amazon and FatBrain.
Check out the great review on Amazon
smbmount \\\\computer name\\share password -U username -W workgroup or domain -c 'mount mountpoint'
Works like a charm.
Beetle
http://ruff.cs.jmu.edu/~beetle/