SHARES

I entered these so that each user, the printers, guest and the CD-ROMs were shared and able to be used on the network. There is help for each entry. It is worth reading each of these carefully. This is the hardest part of the installation to get right, at least for me!

Preparing a 'smbpasswd' file

I made a directory called '/usr/samba/private'. I then made a 'smbpasswd' file for this new directory using a shell script called 'mksmbpasswd.sh'. Unfortunately this part of the Samba suite is not included in the 'tardist' distribution, even though /usr/samba/docs/textdocs\ENCRYPTION.TXT states: "The mksmbpasswd.sh program is found in the Samba source directory." You have to obtain it from the source distribution of Samba. To do this, I downloaded samba6x.2.0.5a.tardist to /tmp. Then I typed 'gunzip samba6x-2.0.5a.tar.gz' then 'tar xvf samba6x-2.0.5a.tar'. This created a directory '/tmp/samba-2.0.5a/source/script' which contained several scripts, including 'mksmbpasswd.sh'. I copied 'updatesmbpasswd.sh', 'addtosmbpass', 'mksmbpasswd.sh' and 'convert_smbpasswd' to '/usr/samba/private'.

Then I changed directories to /usr/samba/private and typed

• chmod 750 updatesmbpasswd.sh addtosmbpass mksmbpasswd.sh convert_smbpasswd

• cat /etc/passwd | ./mksmbpasswd.sh > /usr/samba/private/smbpasswd

I noted that the 'smbpasswd' file contained 'Xs' in groups of 32. I altered permissions for this directory and file:

• cd /usr/samba/private/
• chmod 600 smbpasswd
• cd ..
• chmod 500 private

3. Starting the 'smbd' Samba daemon to run the 'smb' service

I stopped the samba and nmbd daemons with:

• /etc/init.d/samba stop

then

• /etc/init.d/samba start

This started the smbd and nmbd in the same way as starting the computer.

Note: Both smbd and nmbd can be stopped, started or restarted in the 'SWAT', 'STATUS' options.

I ran

• /usr/samba/bin/smbstatus

to check that it was OK. This showed that the Samba daemon was running.

Using the '/usr/samba/bin/smbpasswd' script to alter the 'smbpasswd' file's passwords

The '/usr/samba/private/smbpasswd' file that I created as described above, contains 'Xs' instead of passwords for users who want to connect to the Indy from PCs. The presence of the 'Xs' prevents connection to samba shares by default. For this reason I ran the '/usr/samba/bin/smbpasswd' script so that I could enter the passwords one by one into this file. I entered them for 'root' and each 'human' user. I did not alter the ones for 'ftp', 'guest' etc as smbpasswords are only needed for connections that use samba, not 'ftp', 'telnet' etc. that bypass it. Only 'suidroot' could change the 'smbpasswd' in my configuration so when users alter their IRIX password they will have to be altered for 'smbpasswd' by root as well.

Updating Samba when new versions are released

This is simple. Download the new *tardist file to /tmp. Start software manager and tell it to do a 'custom installation' of /tmp/*tardist. It will unpack the tardist file and install it in '/usr/samba' when you click on 'start'.  Run ‘/etc/init.d samba stop ; /etc/init.d samba start’ in a shell as superuser, to restart the samba and nmb daemons after the installation has completed. The automatic installation will overwrite the out-of-date Samba files and create new ones in the '/usr/samba' directory and subdirectories. I suggest that you look at these and the README there to see what was done. Upgrades should not alter the current ‘/usr/samba/lib/smb.conf’ file. 

Note that in Samba v 2.0.6

(a) You can enable all printers on your system to be used by samba, by running the script '/usr/samba/scripts/mkprintcap.sh'. This creates a file called '/usr/samba/printcap', containing the names of the printers configured on your system. You will also have to add the line 'printcap name = /usr/samba/printcap' under the [global] section of '/usr/samba/lib/smb.conf', so that Samba know that you will be using this file and not '/etc/printcap', which is the default file. If you want to do this, you might also like to install the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) as this provides an excellent way to set up and use printers on IRIX. I have a  'Guide' to installing CUPS which explains how to do this.

(b) This update configures samba to run as daemons by the script ' /etc/init.d/samba' and the file /'etc/config/samba'. You can 'enable' or 'disable' samba, using 'chkconfig': Typing in a shell as superuser 'chkconfig samba on' will set samba to start when you restart the computer and 'chkconfig samba off' will do the reverse. 'chkconfig' alone, will list the processes and whether they are on or off.  If you would prefer to have samba started by 'inetd', you can run the script '/usr/samba/inetd.sh'. I did not do this, as the 'chkconfig' options can be useful. If you do use '/usr/etc/inetd' to start and stop Samba, the command to do so is 'etc/killall -HUP inetd'. This stops and restarts all the processes listed in '/etc/inetd.conf'. Note that 'swat', the utility to control Samba, is still present in '/etc/initd.conf' so is stopped and started using the 'etc/killall -HUP inetd' command.

Documents and other assistance

The Samba web pages are at Samba.org where there are links to Samba web and download sites, etc.

See /usr/samba/docs which is up to date and contains all the information I needed. Online, the documentation is at http://uk.samba.org/samba/samba.html.

There are also online and printed books on Samba:

• 'Using Samba' by Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown, Peter Kelly. Published by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 1st Edition November 1999. It includes information on Samba v 2*.

• 'Samba: Integrating UNIX and Windows' by John D. Blair, Samba Team, ISBN 1-57831-006-7, February 1998. It is available from Amazon on-line booksellers @ US$29.99.