Sam Varghese wrote:
On Sat, Nov 24, 2001 at 04:12:07PM +0000, Phillip Deackes wrote:
I would now like to be able to print and possibly send files to my Linux
box from the Windows machine. I have been doing some reading and have
installed Samba, but have made little progress. I am not sure how to set
up Samba - I have been through the /etc/samba/smb.conf and made an attempt
to set up a password with smbpasswd. The trouble is, what exactly am I
setting the password for? Is it the password I will need on the Windows
machine to access my Linux box? Do I need shadow passwords (don't even
know what they are!)?
Shadow passwords don't really enter into the equation. But for the
curious: historically user's passwords (for logging into *nix - nothing
to do with Samba) were stored in the world-readable /etc/passwd file.
Since this file was world-readable, a cr/hacker could use a password
cracking routine to pound on the encrypted passwords, making his job of
stealing passwords relatively easy. Shadow passwords moved the password
out of the world-readable file into a file that required more
privileges. This way the apps/people who needed access to the info in
the /etc/passwd file still had access, but they no longer had access to
the actual encrypted passwords. The level of security was thus enhanced.
But, on to your question.
Install Samba. You've already done this.
Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf (or use SWAT via your web browser if you've
installed it) to define what shares you want to create. You'll also want
to set the domain to be the same as what your Windows machines are in.
You may need to restart Samba (/etc/init.d/samba restart).
Run smbpasswd to create username/passwords for the people who will be
accessing the samba shares. These passwords are not in any way related
to the system passwords, except that they may be the same passwords,
just as your ATM and your long distance PIN codes may be the same even
though they're unrelated to each other.
From your Windows box, map a drive (or install a printer) to
//yourLinuxBox'sHostName/theSambaShareYou'veDefined; when it asks for a
username/password, enter in the username/password you used when you ran
smbpasswd. If you're connecting from a Win95 (and maybe 98/ME?) box, the
username it uses is the username you logged into Windows as. If from
NT/W2K/XtraProprietary, you can specify a username in the pop-up box.
Hope this helps.
Kent
