

                        Frequently Asked Questions
   
                                 about the 

                                SAMBA Suite 

                 (FAQ version 1.00, Samba version 1.7.00)




FAQ prepared by Karl Auer (Karl.Auer@anu.edu.au) with lots of help from
bitter experience, good luck and just plain bloody-mindedness, not to mention
numerous net.helpers. Special thanks however to Andrew Tridgell for being
patiently prepared to explain, no matter how long it took or how often I
asked!

Note: This FAQ is (and probably always will be) under construction. Some 
sections exist only as optimistic entries in the Contents page.

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                                 Contents
                             ----------------

SECTION ONE: General information

   All about Samba - what it is, how to get it, related sources of information.

SECTION TWO: Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host

   Common problems that arise when building and installing Samba under Unix.

SECTION THREE: Common client problems

   Common problems that arise when trying to communicate from a client
   computer to a Samba server. All problems which have symptoms you see at
   the client end will be in this section.

SECTION FOUR: Specific client problems

   This section covers problems that are specific to certain clients, such as
   Windows for Workgroups or Windows NT. Please check Section Three first!

SECTION FIVE: Specific client application problems

   This section covers problems that are specific to certain products, such as
   Windows for Workgroups or Windows NT. Please check Sections Three and Four
   first!

SECTION SIX: Miscellaneous

   All the questions that aren't classifiable into any other section.

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SECTION ONE: General information
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: What is Samba?

   Samba is a suite of programs which work together to allow clients to access
   Unix filespace and printers via the SMB (Session Message Block) protocol.

   In practice, this means that you can redirect disks and printers to Unix
   disks and printers from Lan Manager clients, Windows for Workgroups 3.11
   clients, Windows NT clients and OS/2 clients. There is also a Unix client
   program supplied as part of the suite which allows Unix users to use an 
   ftp-like interface to access filespace and printers on any other SMB
   servers.
 
   The components of the suite are (in summary):
 
      smbd       the SMB server. This handles actual connections from clients
      nmbd       the Netbios name server, which helps clients locate servers
      smbclient  the Unix-hosted client program
      smbrun     a little 'glue' program to help the server run external 
                 programs
      testprns   a program to test server access to printers
      testparms  a program to test the Samba configuration file for correctness
      smb.conf   the Samba configuration file
      smbprint   a sample script to allow a Unix host to use smbclient to print
                 to an SMB server
   
   The suite is supplied with full source (of course!) and is GPLed.

   The primary creator of the Samba suite is Andrew Tridgell. Later versions
   incorporate much effort by many net.helpers. The man pages and this FAQ
   were written by Karl Auer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2: What is the current version of Samba?

   At time of writing, the current version was 1.7.08.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3: Where can I get it?

   The Samba suite is available via anonymous ftp from nimbus.anu.edu.au.

   The latest and greatest versions of the suite are in the directory:

      /pub/tridge/samba/

   Development (read "alpha") versions, which are NOT necessarily stable and
   which do NOT necessarily have accurate documentation, are available in
   the directory:

      /pub/tridge/samba/alpha

   Note that binaries are NOT included in any of the above. Samba is 
   distributed ONLY in source form, though binaries may be available from 
   other sites. Recent versions of some Linux distributions, for example,
   do contain Samba binaries for that platform.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4: What platforms are supported?

   Many different platforms have run Samba successfully. The platforms
   most widely used and thus best tested are Linux and SunOS.

   At time of writing, the Makefile claimed support for:

      SunOS
      Linux with shadow passwords
      Linux without shadow passwords
      SOLARIS
      SOLARIS 2.2
      SVR4
      ULTRIX
      OSF1 (alpha only - not well tested)
      AIX
      BSDI
      NetBSD
      NetBSD 1.0
      SEQUENT
      HP-UX
      SGI
      SGI IRIX 4.x.x
      SGI IRIX 5.x.x
      FreeBSD
      NeXT 3.2 and above
      NeXT OS 2.x
      NeXT OS 3.0
      ISC SVR3V4
      SCO with shadow passwords.
      SCO with shadow passwords, without YP.
      SCO with TCB passwords
      intergraph
      DGUX

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5: How can I find out more about Samba?

   There are two mailing lists devoted to discussion of Samba-related matters.
   There is soon to be a newsgroup, if all goes well.

   Send email to listproc@anu.edu.au. Make surethe subject line is blank, and
   include the following two lines in the body of the message:

      subscribe samba Firstname Lastname
      subscribe samba-announce Firstname Lastname

   Obviously you should substitute YOUR first name for "Firstname" and YOUR
   last name for "Lastname"! Try not to send any signature stuff, it 
   sometimes confuses the list processor.

   The samba list is a digest list - every eight hours or so it regurgitates
   a single message containing all the messages that have been received by the
   list since the last time and sends a copy of this message to all
   subscribers.

   If you stop being interested in Samba, please send another email to 
   listproc@anu.edu.au. Make sure the subject line is blank, and include the 
   following two lines in the body of the message:

      unsubscribe samba
      unsubscribe samba-announce
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6: Something's gone wrong - what should I do?

                        *** IMPORTANT! ***
             DO NOT post messages on mailing lists or 
             in newsgroups until you have carried out
             the first three steps given here!

Firstly, see if there are any likely looking entries in this FAQ!

Secondly, read the man pages for smbd, nmbd and smb.conf, looking for topics
that relate to what you are trying to do.

Thirdly, if there is no obvious solution to hand, try to get a look at the log
files for smbd and/or nmbd for the period during which you were having 
problems. You may need to reconfigure the servers to provide more extensive
debugging information - usually level 2 or level 3 provide ample debugging
info. Inspect these logs closely, looking particularly for the string "Error:".

If you successfully solve a problem, please mail me a succinct description of
the symptom, the problem and the solution, so I can incorporate it in the next
version of the FAQ.

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SECTION TWO: Compiling and installing Samba on a Unix host
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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SECTION THREE: Common client problems
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: I can't see the Samba server in any browse lists!

This is normal - Samba servers are not browsable. You need to type the
server and service name in 'manually'. For example, to connect to the service
"fred" on the host "mary" you would typically specify something like:

   \\mary\fred

If your GUI client does not permit you to select non-browsable servers, you may
need to do so on the command line. For example, under Lan Manager you might 
connect to the above service as disk drive M: thusly:

   net use M: \\mary\fred

The details of how to do this and the specific syntax varies from client to 
client - check your client's documentation.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2: Some files that I KNOW are on the server doesn't show up when I view the
   directories from my client!

If you check what files are not showing up, you will note that they are files
which contain upper case letters or which are otherwise not DOS-compatible
(ie, they are not legal DOS filenames for some reason).

The Samba server can be configured either to ignore such files completely, or
to present them to the client in "mangled" form. If you are not seeing the
files at all, the Samba server has most likely been configured to ignore them.
Consult the man page smb.conf(5) for details of how to change this - the
parameter you need to set is "mangled names = yes".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3: Some files on the server show up with really wierd filenames when I view the
   directories from my client!

If you check what files are showing up wierd, you will note that they are files
which contain upper case letters or which are otherwise not DOS-compatible
(ie, they are not legal DOS filenames for some reason).

The Samba server can be configured either to ignore such files completely, or
to present them to the client in "mangled" form. If you are seeing strange
file names, they are most likely "mangled". If you would prefer to have such
files ignored rather than presented in "mangled" form, consult the man page
smb.conf(5) for details of how to change the server configuration - the
parameter you need to set is "mangled names = no".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4: My client reports "cannot locate specified computer" or similar.

This indicates one of three things: You supplied an incorrect server name,
the underlying TCP/IP layer is not working correctly, or the name you
specified cannot be resolved.

After carefully checking that the name you typed is the name you should have
typed, try doing things like pinging a host or telnetting to somewhere on your
network to see if TCP/IP is functioning OK. If it is, the problem is most
likely name resolution.

If your client has a facility to do so, hardcode a mapping between the hosts IP
and the name you want to use. For example, with Man Manager or Windows for
Workgroups you would put a suitable entry in the file LMHOSTS. If this works,
the problem is in the communication between your client and the netbios name
server. If it does not work, then there is something fundamental wrong with
your naming and the solution is beyond the scope of this document.

If you do not have any server on your subnet supplying netbios name resolution,
hardcoded mappings are your only option. If you DO have a netbios name server
running (such as the Samba suite's nmbd program), the problem probably lies
in the way it is set up. Refer to Section Two of this FAQ for more ideas.

By the way, remember to REMOVE the hardcoded mapping before further tests :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5: My client reports "cannot locate specified share name" or similar.

This message indicates that your client CAN locate the specified server, which
is a good start, but that it cannot find a service of the name you gave.

The first step is to check the exact name of the service you are trying to 
connect to (consult your system administrator). Assuming it exists and
you specified it correctly (read your client's doco on how to specify a
service name correctly), read on:

Many clients cannot accept or use service names longer than eight characters.
Many clients cannot accept or use service names containing spaces.
Some servers (not Samba though) are case sensitive with service names.
Some clients force service names into upper case.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6: My client reports "cannot find domain controller", "cannot log on to the
   network" or similar.

Nothing is wrong - Samba does not implement the primary domain name controller
stuff for several reasons, including the fact that the whole concept of a
primary domain controller and "logging in to a network" doesn't fit well with
clients possibly running on multiuser machines (such as users of smbclient
under Unix).

Seeing this message should not affect your ability to mount redirected disks
and printers, which is really what all this is about.

For many clients (including Windows for Workgroups and Lan Manager), setting
the domain to STANDALONE at least gets rid of the message.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7: Printing doesn't work :-(

Make sure that the specified print command for the service you are connecting
to is correct and that it has a fully-qualified path (eg., use "/usr/bin/lpr"
rather than just "lpr").

Make sure that the spool directory specified for the service is
writable by the user connected to the service. In particular the user
"nobody" often has problems with printing, even if it worked with an
earlier version of Samba. Try creating another guest user other than
"nobody".

Make sure that the user specified in the service is permitted to use the
printer.

Check the debug log produced by smbd. Search for the printer name and see if
the log turns up any clues. Note that error messages to do with a service ipc$
are meaningless - they relate to the way the client attempts to retrieve
status information when using the LANMAN1 protocol.

If using WfWg then you need to set the default protocol to TCP/IP, not
Netbeui. This is a WfWg bug.

If using the Lanman1 protocol (the default) then try switching to
coreplus. Also not that print status error messages don't mean
printing won't work. The print status is received by a different
mechanism.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8: My programs install on the server OK, but refuse to work properly.

There are numerous possible reasons for this, but one MAJOR possibility is that
your software uses locking. Make sure you are using Samba 1.6.11 or later. It
may also be possible to work around the problem by setting "locking=no" in
the Samba configuration file for the service the software is installed on. This
should be regarded as a strictly temporary solution.

In earlier Samba versions there were some difficulties with the very
latest Microsoft products, particularly Excel 5 and Word for Windows
6. Thse should have all been solved. If not then please let Andrew
Tridgell know.

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SECTION FOUR: Specific client problems
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SECTION FIVE: Specific client application problems
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SECTION SIX: Miscellaneous
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